One Stroke
by Bjanik
Summary: Summary: Sometimes acting on that homicidal tendency is the right thing to do. Precrazy Sephiroth.
1. Long Overdue

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

White flecks gracefully flittered through the air, brilliant in the fluorescent light as they fell. A few struck and adhered to the red slicked surface of the blade whose tip had liberated them from the rest of the ceiling tile. Sephiroth looked slowly up the length of his beloved sword. He'd never swung it in the lab before; he should have known he would nick the ceiling with that stroke. And a good stroke it had been, as clean and as fast as any he had thrown in the heat of battle. But it had been only a single stroke. He needed only the one.

He turned his gaze to his target before him. The bastard had not even had enough time to replace his normal triumphant sneer with shock. Hojo, for the moment, looked completely normal. But not for long. As Sephiroth watched a tiny red line appeared almost down the center of Hojo's face and neck. Only the barest trickle of blood escaped before the two halves slid slowly apart, one side tilting towards him and the other away, then both suddenly collapsing onto the floor. Once the blood vessels stopped their temporary constriction from the trauma they let loose a red flood, spattering the general's legs and pooling around his boots.

He had done this trick many times on the battlefield. The unnatural speed of his stroke combined with a razor sharp a blade would sever body portions so cleanly that they would sometimes cleave momentarily together. But he never had the leisure, or maybe more importantly the inclination, for savoring the sight.

But he savored it now.

He plucked a full sized kimwipe from a lab bench and casually wiped Masumune clean. One green eye glinted back at him in the polished steel.

"I don't think so," he said to the corpse, before turning and walking slowly out of the lab.

On his way back to his office Sephiroth had to fight the inclination to grin like a child with birthday cake. He felt positively giddy. Sure, this was going to create some problems. It might even be the end of him. But mostly he wondered why he had not done it sooner. He had been raised to rigidly respect authority, and although Hojo had tortured and tormented him his whole life, that was the life Sephiroth had and he accepted that. But Hojo was a damn fool to think he could stand there safely in front of him and demand that he hand over "a few SOLDIERS" for some of the same treatment. There was no way, no fucking way, any of his men were going on that table.

He slid his mouse around roughly to wake up his computer, and composed an email to the president.

**Mr. ShinRa**

**I have killed Professor Hojo in the lab. You probably want to send a cleanup team down there.**

**-Sephiroth**

He looked at the short message before deciding there wasn't much else to say and pushing send. Then he shut down his computer and left.

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"Aw, man!" Reno picked up his foot from a slick red puddle that had run all the way to the doorway. With a nimble step sideways he managed to find a clear spot to stand in.

"What a mess." Rude surveyed the impressive amount of red on the floor. The sickly smell of blood competed with the normal chemical odor of the lab. He clenched his heavy jaws in distaste. "And I always thought Hojo was a dried up, bloodless lunatic."

"Blood sucking lunatic more like it." Reno took another hop to get a better view. "Hey!" he looked up, grinning under a mop of fiery hair, "You gotta see this; he sliced him clean in half! I gotta give the General credit for this one."

Rude leaned over and grunted.

"We need a body bag."

"Rude, we're in Hojo's lab, yo."

"Oh yeah, right."

Reno disappeared in the next room and returned carrying a black bundle made of heavy plastic and pulling a wheeled cart behind him.

"I'm not even going to ask how you knew where that was."

Reno shook out the body bag and laid it on the gory floor the way one might spread a picnic blanket. "Well, I must say, it couldn't have happened to a better guy, Professor Hojo," he said, grinning maniacally.

They both stepped carefully up to one of the body halves, Rude grabbing a foot and Reno grabbing the half-head. As he lifted, the fingers on Reno's left hand curled around the cut edge of the skull and sank into the soft matter behind. He jerked slightly with revulsion, and the combination of smooth lab floor, blood, and Turk dress shoes sent him sprawling, taking Rude down with him.

"Shit, goddamfucking sonofwhore!"

Once they were down and covered with the slick stuff getting back on their feet proved challenging. Reno's frenzy to get upright was actually hindering his progress.

"Damn it! Why is does the floor have to be so fucking smooth?"

"So Hojo can hose the blood and guts off it."

They looked at one another, then over the wall.

"Hose," Reno said and went for one of the coils hanging on the wall.

"NO! Not that one!" Rude yelled, "It got green shit in it! Get the one labeled water!"

With the power of the hose things went better. They hosed off the floor, the body bag, the body, and each other. Rude even hosed clean parts of the floor that were not in their way.

"Housewife," Reno said when he was done. Rude opened the water jet square into his face.

**A/N : Thanks to anybody who reads this, but especially any reviewers. Help me out if you can, I'm particularly interested in hearing about anything that was unclear on the first read (or god forbid the second or third read) or anything that caused you to stop and say "no way". I'll update soon.**


	2. Nice Job

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"Look! Just look at this!" Rufus ShinRa, president of the most powerful company on Gaia was gesturing wildly at his computer, his face red with anger. Tseng leaned forward to read the short email the General had written.

"He doesn't even explain why he did it!"

"This is Sephiroth," Tseng said carefully, "Do we really have to question why he would kill Professor Hojo?"

Rufus pursed his lips in thought.

"I knew it was a mistake, letting that fucked-up excuse for a human run loose. You think he's lost it entirely?"

"If he had we'd all be on fire now." Tseng said, a flatness to his voice that Rufus ShinRa found maddening given the circumstance.

"Find him," he snapped, "I want every one of your Turks on this. Bring him to me, under control. Drug him if you have to, I don't care."

Tseng nodded and left the big office.

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It wasn't hard to find Sephiroth. He had apparently just gone home, a larger than average set of apartments high up in the main ShinRa tower. Tseng wasn't surprised. He couldn't imagine Sephiroth running, becoming a fugitive, hiding out somewhere... it just wasn't his style. Nevertheless he had stuffed the hallway with his Turks, most carrying big caliber ordinance and three with sedative injecting dart guns each enough to drop an entire platoon. He had no idea whether they were effective on Sephiroth. Only Hojo could have answered that. He also had two choppers outside his window, similarly equipped. Still, Tseng wondered if Sephiroth planned to put up a fight if any of it mattered.

He surveyed his people, noticing Rude and Reno were still absent. They had dropped Hojo's body off at the morgue and should have joined them by now. As if on cue he saw the redhead, shirt hanging open and untucked as usual, leading a rather grumpy looking Rude up the hallway. Both were sopping wet, Reno particularly looked like he taken a shower with his clothes on. Tseng shook his head, opting not to ask. The answers usually aggravated him more than not knowing.

Tseng knocked on the door and waited. He should be still in there, the security cameras in the hallway showed him going in but not out. He could've have gone out the window, the coverage outside the building was spotty. Tseng didn't imagine that 34 floors up would deter Sephiroth much. He was about to knock again when the door opened.

Sephiroth, completely composed, stepped out to take a curious look at the sea of blue suits in front of his door, all pointing some sort of weapon in his direction. Tseng noticed he was wearing both epaulettes on his nearly floor length battle coat and had Masamune with him. That wasn't a particularly good sign. On the other hand the General often wandered around ShinRa looking like he'd come straight off the field, and he looked at least for the moment calm and sane.

"President ShinRa would like to see you," Tseng said.

Sephiroth merely nodded and made to head towards the elevator. Tseng stopped his progress with a hand to his shoulder. This was the tricky part. He had never, ever touched Sephiroth and wasn't sure anyone else had. Except Hojo of course. He looked steadily into the green eyes, and was rather unnerved to see the vertically slotted pupils twitch. He had never in his life seen somebody's pupils _twitch_ and had no experience to tell him what emotional state that might indicate. But he guessed it wasn't good.

"I need your word that you'll behave," he said, belying none of his tension, "or I'll have to sedate you."

Sephiroth smiled slightly, an evil looking thin line on a mouth so unaccustomed to it. He knew the Turk leader should sedate him. It would be the safer thing to do. He was offering him a professional courtesy.

"You have my word."

They traveled along en masse looking far more like a celebrity with entourage than an armed escort of a dangerous murderer. Sephiroth was taller than most of the Turks, and his attire outlandish compared to the identical blue suits surrounding him. Luckily they didn't have to traipse through too much company real estate, just past a few offices. Tseng noticed with alarm one of the desk workers picking up a phone as they passed. Rude had already moved to intercept, but he wanted to kick himself for not clearing the area first. That was all they needed, every SOLDIER in the building racing up here to defend their general. Well he could slow down their organizing at least. God bless the chain of command, Soldiers needed leaders. What he needed was some mayhem. He had just the man for it. He motioned for Reno.

"Yo, bossman," Reno put his head close to Tseng. Tseng noticed with annoyance that he was chewing gum of all things. Probably a surrogate for the cigarette that normally hung out of his mouth.

"I need SOLDIER HQ in a state of anarchy, and quick. Especially First Class, and if you find Zack Fair lock him down. We're sealing the stairs and elevators behind you."

"Righto." The redhead gave a signal to his partner and two other Turks and all four took off at a run down the hallway.

The big doors to the President's office swung open as they approached. Tseng sent half his people in first, then motioned for Sephiroth to follow, then the remaining Turks filed in. The Turks separated into groups and moved to the edges of the room, surrounding Sephiroth in a three point formation, each 120 degree angles apart ensuring no group was in another's line of fire. Rufus ShinRa glared at the tall angular man standing in the center of this circus.

"Care to explain yourself General?"

"You didn't get my email?" Sephiroth asked, a look of sarcastic concern on his face.

Rufus ShinRa reddened. Sephiroth took a moment to enjoy how easily this supposed grand leader lost his cool.

"Obviously I got your email," Rufus hissed. "Otherwise you would not be here. I might have assumed some escaped experiment had cut Professor Hojo in two, so maybe I should thank you for your confession. What I want to know is why."

"I was asked to do something I could not."

Rufus gaped at him.

"You are a Soldier. You'll do as you are told! Or have you lost all sense of the command structure? Because if so you're no use to me."

Something flared inside Sephiroth, invisible but palpable all the same. Every Turk in the room raised their weapon. With stunning speed Tseng stepped between the General and the president. In a flash whatever it was disappeared and Tseng moved aside half a pace.

"I understand my chain of command all too well. Professor Hojo outranks me in this company. He asked me to submit Soldiers who are quite literally in my care to torturous and immoral experimentation that I know better than anyone serve only his ego. I cannot disobey his command. I could not do what he asked. Ergo I killed him."

Rufus stared at the visage in front of him, momentarily unable to work around this twisted logic, perverse in its simplicity. He wondered briefly what this being standing in his office was. Rufus had inherited Sephiroth from his father, ShinRa president before him. One of many Hojo projects. Sephiroth was tall, ramrod straight, metallic silver hair that must be at least a meter long. And dressed like a homoerotic adolescent wet dream. His eyes weren't even human; Rufus never could look at them close but they reminded him of an animal. Something was wrong with the shape of the pupils.

"It is not your place, _General Sephiroth_ to decide on morality or the direction of research. Your place is to serve and benefit the company."

"Oh?" said Sephiroth, arching one silver eyebrow, and taking a sedate step forward. Turks all around the room shifted slightly. "And you were getting that from Professor Hojo?"

Rufus narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Have you been down to the labs lately? Or at all?"

Rufus shifted his eyes off to the side, and Sephiroth knew the man had not been down to the labs. Not that he could blame him, not many had the stomach for it.

"Professor Hojo had, always had, a peculiar mania for playing god. For creating oddities simply for the sake of creating them. Not for ShinRa, for himself. To own them."

Sephiroth spread his palms up and lowered his head like a man in prayer who is unable through guilt or fear to lift his eyes to the heavens. Rufus ShinRa bravely accepted the invitation to investigate this creature finally. It was probably his best chance to do so. He peered closely at the flawless pale skin; there was not a pore visible anywhere on him. His chest, naked save for some sort of crossed strapped leather garment under his coat, was likewise free of marks. He should have been filled with scars given his life and from what he'd heard were constant exploratory surgeries from Hojo during his youth. All done while Sephiroth was conscious, for reasons he now couldn't remember. He could sense the apprehension in the room as he took up a lock of the silver hair and pinched it between thumb and forefinger. Perfectly round strands rolled passed one another with ease, each with a light in it's depths as if it were made of glass. He turned over one of Sephiroth's hands, examined the ends of the long, powerful fingers. The nails were pink and glossy but completely opaque. The centerline arched upward more than could be called normal. Finally he looked into the man's blazing green eyes, the bright color of mako but not the diffuse, unfocused green he'd seen when Soldiers were in the zone. The irises were sharp and vivid, luminous strands clearly demarking the structured bands that pulled towards that odd shaped pupil. Vertical. Like a cat, he thought, that was the animal that had eyes like that, a cat.

Then he felt something. A slow, intense thrumming coming from somewhere inside the strange body. It was terrifying and he instinctually knew it was dangerous, but he couldn't break away from looking into those eyes. He was aware the Turks had raised their weapons again, and still he couldn't move. Then the green eyes looked down and he followed. Sephiroth's right hand had engulfed itself in flame. The fireball stayed within his palm, contented and stable, undamaging to its host. Rufus reached dreamily towards it.

"It's hot." The General grabbed his wrist, stopping the reckless progress. He released Rufus and let him probe more gently. When his index finger touched the bright orange edge he jerked it back quickly. Sephiroth closed his fingers, extinguishing the fire. He then straightened to his full height, banishing the temporary illusion of placability. Rufus ShinRa backed quickly out of his reach.

"I think you approved a new Soldier project, heavier enhancements from what we have now?" Sephiroth said.

"I have."

"Expensive?"

Rufus snorted. "They're all expensive."

"As is our current SOLDIER program. And it's riddled with problems. Psychosis, mako overloads, spontaneous degenerations, memory problems..."

"I do read your reports General."

"I have far better luck at maintaining soldiers by altering diet, environment, and training than anything we've gotten from the labs. I've taught them to monitor their own mako levels and how to make adjustments. Yet every one of my requests for lab studies to better address maintenance issues has been ignored.

Sir we don't understand the Soldiers we have, and that madman was about to develop something even more complicated and less human. Maybe less human than even I."

He gave Rufus a look that made the hair raise on the back of his neck. The man, or whatever he was, certainly had a point. He didn't want a whole buttload of these running around. Or something worse.

Sephiroth softened his voice, a calculated modulation on his part that he often used with success to soothe a tweaked out Soldier. "Mr. ShinRa, do my people not meet the current military needs of the company?"

"Yes, of course they do. Their field performance is stellar; we're dispatching planet launched monsters as fast as they crop up."

"Are you expecting the need for more muscle in the future?"

"No, in fact the climate for business seems to be shifting more toward intelligence gathering."

"Ah, so it's better Turks we need?"

Sephiroth heard a small click as Tseng snapped his teeth together, and felt a rustle all around him. Comments like that might get him shot, but it might be worth it. The tension of this gun filled room was starting to wear on him.

Rufus smiled at him a little. Damn, he was good. Smart, not just physically powerful. Maybe a little crazy. He was fairly certain their soldier program would fall apart without Sephiroth, and he suspected after seeing him up close and listening to him that he had every Soldier eating out of his hand. They would probably riot if anything happened to their general. Hojo on the other hand... who was going to miss him anyway? Maybe this was all going to work out alright. But he couldn't just let him get clean away with murder.

"While I don't necessarily disagree with your arguments General I must take issue with your method. You will put yourself under house arrest until you hear from me. You are not to leave your apartments or receive visitors. Tseng," He turned to the Turk leader, "make sure this happens. No phone, no email."

Sephiroth gave a submissive bow to the president, head tilted. Rufus stared transfixed as the silver hair slipped in a brilliant cascade over one broad shoulder. And without waiting for his Turk escort Sephiroth left the room, forcing them to follow.

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Tseng caught up to Sephiroth and dismissed all but two of his Turks.

"I can't believe you talked your way out of that one," he said. "I didn't even know you could talk."

Sephiroth stopped mid stride.

"I talk. Just not to you."

Tseng bit back a grin and leaned his head close to Sephiroth's until their shoulders actually touched.

"Nice work," he whispered under of the earshot of his Turks, and then veered away to his own business.

Sephiroth tensed his whole frame and slowly released his muscles. That was the second time in one day that guy had touched him. This was the result of his little display in the president's office, prostrating himself into that vulnerable position for Rufus ShinRa. Well he had been desperate, but never again. Not if the result was that some Turk felt he could come sidling up to him and whisper things in his ear whenever he wanted. He glared at his remaining two escorts. They returned utterly blank looks and kept their distance. _Good Turks_, he thought, and continued home. He wanted a shower.


	3. Smarter than He Looks

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"No, seriously, there was some sort of cosmically bad karma going on, maybe its better the General wasn't down there." Zack Fair was gesturing wildly with a file folder in his hand as he and Reno sped up the elevator, relating the events the day Sephiroth had sliced Hojo in two and got himself arrested. "I guess the heater in the training hall caught fire and blew the fuse, so all the power on the whole floor went out. They have those emergency lights, but after one flicker they failed. Then for some reason the place filled with smoke."

"Really? Probably from the fire." Reno put on his best wide-eyed innocent look for the Soldier. There was nothing he liked better than hearing second hand about events that he himself had orchestrated.

"Yeah, I guess. Almost all the First Classes were stuck for awhile in the lounge because it has that electronically locking door on it."

"Damn electronic doors," Reno commiserated. Some carefully applied voltage had been required for that one because the doors in the ShinRa building had independent power backup. They couldn't be disabled from power failure. It was just extra luck that Soldiers apparently didn't grasp that obvious fact about the doors and so blamed the power outage. Sometimes his job was just too easy.

"I wasn't in there with them, so I was trying to get to the recruiting area, but it was pitch black, I mean pitch, even _I_ couldn't see. Then something hit me on the head." Zack frowned and rubbed his scalp under his unruly black locks. "And I woke up in a closet."

"A closet?" Reno coughed oddly, covering his mouth with both hands. Zack looked at him for a moment, sure the man was smirking.

"Yeah... the door would not budge at all. I had to beat my way out through a wall. Here," he held up his hands and elbows for inspection, "Oh, well it's healed now, but it took me half an hour."

"My friend," Reno said, "much as I thoroughly enjoy your stories of anarchy in the soldier areas, I'm still not letting you in there."

"Oh c'mon, just a few minutes, I really need to talk to him!"

"Um, let me think... No."

They had reached the General's apartment and Reno dismissed the two very bored looking Turks guarding the door. The two men stared at each other for a moment while something slowly dawned on Zack. A wicked grin spread across his face.

"Hey Reno, where's your partner?"

"Ah, crap." There was no way he could beat Zack toe to toe like this. So much for stealth and ingenuity. Reno shut his eyes and let it come.

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"Reno!"

The world was sliding, rocking back and forth. He must be on a boat.

"Reno!"

Well goddam it now the boat was slapping him. He peeled one eye open into a squint.

"Rude?"

"What the hell are you doing on the floor?"

"Ugh." Reno rolled around until he could identify vertical and pushed himself up. The side of his jaw was on fire. When he could finally focus on the dark square face of his partner he palm heeled him in the shoulder.

"Where the hell were you man?"

"Hey, I was little late, what's the big deal? You're going to tell me the General escaped? And what? Went back to work?"

"No stupid, Zack's in there. Or was. What time is it?"

A quick lock pick later and they both stormed into the General's living room, guns pointed at Zack, then Sephiroth, then back at Zack. Both Soldiers looked placidly up from a coffee table spread with training schedules and mission reports.

"Nice of you to drop in guys, but I thought Rufus said no visitors," Zack said.

"W – we are not visitors! Get out Zack!" Reno thrust his handgun forward for emphasis.

"Give me a minute, we're almost done."

"Zack you bastard, ya hit me. Not for the normal stuff this time but for doing my motherfucking job."

Zack frowned at Reno, and then went back to his work.

"You look OK. Besides, I was getting the feeling you deserved it."

Reno considered the young Soldier. Maybe he was smarter than he looked. The two Turks waited, unsure what to do, wholly uninterested in shooting either Soldier. They were after all looking pretty harmless at the moment. And as neither Turk had been inside the General's apartments before, Reno re-holstered his weapon and decided to wander around. He wandered into the kitchen.

"Hey Sephy, why don't you have any beer?"

"Get out of my fridge Reno, and don't call me Sephy." Sephiroth glared at the back of Reno's very red head with a quiet stillness. Zack knew that look; it almost always preceded some sort of violence. He gave his superior's foot a nudge under the table to reroute his attention.

"Forget it Seph, I was going to hit him again later anyway."

"Promise?"

"You bet," Zack said, a smile livening his mako-brightened violet eyes.

Reno ignored their exchange, and Sephiroth tried to ignore the opening and slamming of his cupboard doors. He turned his attention to his second in command, who had been feeling the absence of his commander.

"You've got everything you need here Zack. You can do this."

"Yeah, but the point is I'd rather not. When are you coming back?"

Sephiroth shrugged and looked up at Rude.

"Don't look at me. I don't know," the big Turk said.

"I thought you Turks made it your business to know everything."

"Well _I _know," Reno interrupted, "why we've been bringing you take-out every night. There's _nothing_ in your kitchen. Don't you ever cook?"

Sephiroth refused to look into his now violated kitchen, instead kept his eyes on Zack. "Tell me you're going to hit him twice."

"Whatever you like," Zack replied, looking like he was enjoying the idea. He gathered his files and prepared to head out.

"Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you, they got a replacement for Hojo."

Sephiroth made a face like he had bitten into something rotten.

"And it's a girrrl."

"Young?" Sephiroth frowned.

"Yeah, and pretty."

"She can't be that young if she's in charge of the lab. Surely she's at least forty."

"Twenty-eight, yo" Reno said, plopping his butt down into an overstuffed black leather chair.

Reno was now making himself at home in a space where Sephiroth had previously allowed only one other person, and that was Zack. And that was only because of Zack's legendary persistence. And because Zack helped him get the new furniture after a particularly bad day had ended in him torching his last set. Sephiroth stared intently at Reno, wondering if his face would turn the same shade as his hair when he strangled him. It would only be temporary; the face always turned bluish even before consciousness was lost. It could take up to a minute to kill him, if he was careful not to snap his neck… He felt another one of those nudges from Zack. He looked at Zack and mouthed "three".

"Yeah, she came over from a hospital in Junon," Reno continued, either oblivious or deliberately ignoring the unwelcome looks he was receiving. "Rufus appointed her; I guess he wanted some new blood."

"She's great, actually," Zack beamed, and Sephiroth could tell the young man didn't just mean professionally. "She had Jensen down there, you know with his big old needle phobia, and they didn't even have to strap him down. Just sweet talked him into it. I may go down twice this week. Surely there's something I need done."

"Stay out of the lab, Zachary," Sephiroth growled with a sudden ferocity, "I don't care how attractive you think this lady doctor is! You are not going down there extra."

"Ok, General, sure, whatever," Zack studied his commander. He didn't think he had said anything to warrant the outburst, but the man was sometime unpredictable in his anger.

"Out of here, all of you," Sephiroth ordered, "You too Zachary, back to work."

"Yessir," Zack jumped up but paused at the door. "Hey Seph?"

The General raised his green eyes to meet Zack's.

"Why'd you do it?"

Sephiroth stared at his right hand man for a long moment.

"It was time," he said, a finality to his voice that let the younger man know not to press farther. Zack disappeared down the hall. But unbelievably Reno still lingered in his doorway, leaning against the jam with an actual thoughtful expression on his face.

"Why didn't you tell him?" he asked. Sephiroth gave him the same cold look he'd been getting the whole time. It was the only the look the General ever gave him, and he pretended one more time not to feel it.

"Why didn't you tell him that you did this to protect your own Soldiers?"

Sephiroth didn't answer, but he did confirm a suspicion that Turks shared their information; Reno hadn't been in Rufus's office with the rest of them that day. And he wasn't sure why he didn't tell Zack. His eyes flicked to the seat Zack had just vacated, and remembering Hojo he felt his stomach clench.

"Ah," Reno brought his attention back to the present, "Hojo didn't just ask for just any Soldiers, he wanted Zack Fair specifically, didn't he? That's why you sliced him on the spot instead of taking care of things in, shall I say, less disruptive fashion? Rude and I cleaned up the mess; I know a fit of passion when I see it." Reno's blue eyes danced with triumph.

Sephiroth slammed the door shut on top of the Turk, and as a bonus saw a thin red ruff protruding from the seam. It shivered once, twice, and with a curse was pulled through. Then he heard a yelp, and hoped Reno's larger and more sensible partner had struck him. Now Sephiroth found something about Reno worth smiling over.

**A/N: **thanks for reading. There was a question regarding the length of this thing - it feels like it will be about 30 -50K words with romance, action, denouement. I finished about a third of it before starting to post, and if I keep up I should be able to post every 2 days until finished (for good or for ill). It makes me bat buggy when I get into reading story and then the author abandons it.


	4. Some Kind of Record

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N:** I got a couple comments on how people were expecting this to be a one shot. I thought to myself, well , yeah, that opening scene has kind of a stand alone feel to it, and it even in my head it that's how this story started, that lone spark. But now it occurs to me... the damn title. I know it's a poor title. I suck at titles. But oh well I'm leaving it because it's up there already.

When Sephiroth finally returned to work after his 10 days of forced "vacation" he found Zack Fair had completely taken over his office. Evidence of Zackness was everywhere, from the blanket of papers obscuring every inch of everything to file folders half open to a new coffee stain on the floor. The soles of a pair of well worn combat boots greeted him from the far edge of his desk, their owner leaning back in his chair as he flipped through a report.

"Get your feet off my desk, Zackary."

"Oh, hey Seph, you're back!" Zack tipped himself upright and bounded over to the General before noticing Sephiroth's ill-tempered look. He stopped himself short.

"Well, I should let you get settled in..." Zack made for the door.

"Sit."

Zack removed a scattered pile of folders from the only other chair in the room and sat. Sephiroth circled his desk and frowned at his chair. It had... crumbs on it. He reached down and brushed them off with quick angry strokes.

"What have you been eating in here Zachary?"

"Tessa bars! You want one?" Zack fished a small packet wrapped in cellophane from one thigh cargo pocket and tossed it at Sephiroth. The General caught it and added it to his desk. Assuming his desk was actually under the pile before him.

"I doubt it," he answered.

"Oh, you say that now, but you don't know. It's made out of the same S&M you've been making us eat. Only it's good."

Sephiroth stopped scooping piles of paper together and looked at him. S&M stood for Soldier Mix, the unfortunate name his troops had given the food additive he implemented almost a year ago. Mako tended to react rather badly to the processed, preservative laden food the ShinRa cafeteria relied on. In fact what most of the general population relied on. As a result Soldiers had developed every nutritional deficiency annoyance known; fatigue, depression, muscle twitches, insomnia... the list was endless. Never enough to stop a man in his tracks but the performance drop was noticeable. The solution was a simple one really. Mako responded well to natural food. Unprocessed food. Stuff with the enzymes still in it. But he couldn't get them to eat actual produce fast enough and in large enough volume to meet their needs, plus there was the whole cost and storage issue. But gently dehydrated foods worked almost as well and could provide what was needed in a concentrated form. He found a company who would grind it all together and sell it to ShinRa at an acceptable price. It tasted like cardboard compared to the chemically flavor enhanced popular foods, but after a few months he didn't have to force them to eat it anymore. They ate it because they felt better. Becaue they performed better. Soldiers were after all greedy fanatics when it came to speed and strength.

"You're telling me you made cookies out of it?" Sephiroth asked.

"Not me, I can't cook any more than, well, probably you can. Dr. Romera made them."

"Dr. Romera? T. M. Romera? That would be Tessa Romera?"

"Yeah, Hojo's replacement, I told you about her."

"You didn't tell me her _name_." with a shove of his feet Sephiroth rolled his chair over to the file cabinet, drawer apparently open because the multitude of files several sticking out askew would not allow it to close. He angrily began straightening them.

"Well, her name's Tessa," Zack continued, "So we call them Tessa Bars. Oh, but you're supposed to eat a light and a dark one together. Here, you need a dark with that one." Zack rummaged around again in a pocket and found an olive green colored bar and lobbed to join the pale apricot colored one on the general's desk. "You know when she found out we were eating the S&M she was all excited."

"No doubt," Sephiroth said, finally pulling a folder he was after.

He tossed the folder onto Zack's lap. Zack pulled out a small stack of research papers and read the titles out loud.

" 'Impact of Mako Infusion on Digestion' , 'Mako Induced Enzyme Depletion', 'Mako Mediated Adrenal Disorders' University of MIED, bunch of Dr. So-and-Sos as authors, and... hey, T. M. Romera on every one... that's Dr. Romera? Oh, so she's some sort of expert in mako problems. This is where you got the S&M idea from?"

"Zack, do you read nothing I give you?"

Zack looked at the papers again. They were vaguely familiar. Sephiroth was always giving him stuff to read, and this type was the worst of it. He flipped through the pages of the top most. It was full of equations and jargon he didn't understand.

"Seph, I try, I really do, but I can't get through something like this."

Sephiroth watched as the young man squirmed under his gaze. Then he smiled fondly at his second, apparently a rare flood of sunshine onto the man by his reaction. Too rare, Sephiroth realized. He never appreciated the young Soldier as much should, and it wouldn't hurt him to do it more often. And to remember that not everyone grew up in a lab.

"It's OK, Zack. Really the science department should be interpreting this stuff for us."

Zack brightened. "And we can get that now! Isn't that just what you asked from Rufus when he arrested you?"

Sephiroth frowned at him. How did he know? Did he know everything? Including why he cut down Hojo so impulsively that day?

"Reno told me," Zack said sheepishly. "He's not a bad guy, actually. He takes his lumps well at least. And then... I sort of told everyone."

Sephiroth sighed and put his forehead into his palm.

"And Seph?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." Zack darted forward with the unnatural speed of a first class Soldier and kissed his general on the temple. It was not a gesture that Sephiroth ever learned to be comfortable with, and he suspected that's why Zack persisted in doing it. The only thing that saved him from the dilemma of figuring out what to hit the man with was that Zack would always gratefully disappear immediately after.

"Hey," he called from outside Sephiroth's office, "Group drills in ten minutes, in case you're interested in coming."

Sephiroth considered. He was.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

When Sephiroth entered the training hall Zack was just finishing reading announcements. Soldiers didn't have meetings around oval tables like the rest of ShinRa employees. They had Group Drill. Every Soldier in house was required to attend, so any company news that might affect them was read twice weekly at the start of Group Drill while they stood in a poor excuse for formation in the training hall. They listened, muttered, commented, and occasionally jeered. The elite SOLDIER group was informal in many ways hat the regular grunt army would never be allowed. All of these guys had already paid their dues and proven their worth. And as long as they met his expectations for fighting, determination, and loyalty as far as Sephiroth was concerned they could dress or speak or stand around any way they pleased. Any man who couldn't meet the first two goals was dismissed without chance of returning. Any he suspected of a break in loyalty he simply killed, because he could not have such a man running amok in the populace.

He stepped into the room and into full view of the assembly. Roughly twenty men, the other twenty somewhere out in the field. Forty that could do the job of 500. The first of the group to notice his entrance jabbed their neighbors in the ribs until the they all fell silent at the sight of him, a hush brought on partly by respect and partly by fear. But something was different this time. Their attentiveness was more forward, anticipatory. And Zack was smirking off to the side. Then somewhere from the back he heard an astonishing sound.

A cat call.

Soon it was followed by another, and the whole group erupted in cheers and applause. Sephiroth knew from observing people that this was one of those moments that caused even the sternest to flush, and he wished oddly at the moment that he could. But to this display of appreciation his face remained cool as marble.

Then one of their rank came forward, or more precisely was pushed forward from his fellows. It was Jensen, the needlephobe.

"Excuse me sir," he said, "I've been, well, elected to tell you something from the group."

Sephiroth raised both eyebrows in what he hoped was an encouraging gesture.

"We love you sir," he blurted out, obviously having no problem with that flushing response himself as his face turned a muted red as the crowd behind him launched into another round of applause and rude whistles.

Sephiroth waited for the din to subside, an amused light in his green eyes and a barely perceptible tugging at the corners of his mouth that he couldn't, or wouldn't, beat back. He scanned their ranks, knowing that they were the reason he worked, the reason he struggled, the reason he got up in the morning. These men who fought and died to protect strangers. Men who would wage war against those same strangers at nothing more than his command. As they quieted they looked at the floor, some grinning, some nervous, shuffling their feet and stealing glances up at their commander.

"Partner up!" he barked and the tension broke into activity.

Zack immediately flew into ordering the setup for the first drill, using an odd combination of berating and sweet cajoling to get the perfection he wanted. He really was good at his job. Sephiroth thought again that he didn't appreciate the man enough. He cought Zack's eye and gave him a smile. Second one that day; it was probably some kind of record.

**A/N:** I know "needlephobe" isn't a word. But it should be


	5. A Common Human Courtesy

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: ** My technical advisor informs me I have committed a timing infraction regarding the presidency of ShinRa. Rufus does not become president until Sephiroth kills the old president at the beginning of FFVII, so that would be post-crazy Sephiroth. Ah well. I shall refer to him as "acting president" or something should I need him again.

"You know if you'd go down there you could get your own." Zack had just given up his last Tessa Bar to Sephiroth, who was displaying something like an addiction for them. The damn things were getting precious as materia since supplies were limited and normally only Soldiers scheduled to be in the lab for injections or tests could get some. Despite Zack's earlier mandate NOT to visit the lab extra he found himself down there every morning to pick up a couple of the tasty treats for the General. He knew Dr. Romera had repeatedly requested Sephiroth to come down to the lab and was beginning to be bothered by his apparent disinterest.

"Seph, are you avoiding the lab?"

The General ignored him, continuing his study of an aerial map relating to their next deployment.

"Seph?"

"No."

"You'd hardly recognize it down there," Zack pressed, "They've torn it almost completely apart. And I know Dr. Romera is anxious to meet with you."

"I'll get to it. I just need a couple more days to catch up."

"Alright. See you at dinner maybe." Zack gave a long concerned look at his commander before heading out the door.

Sephiroth had replied to the requests for information regarding Soldier program and sent Dr. Romera copies of all his charts on performance results. But he had so far ignored every request for a meeting. For some reason she particularly wanted him physically down to the lab. And he wasn't sure why he was resisting going down there. He had practically grown up in that lab. Even after he had gained enough power in the company to put a stop to Hojo's blatant abuses to his person he had still made regular trips to the lab, either for himself or on the behalf of his men. But now when the situation was drastically improved he found he never wanted to be there again. He wanted to close that chapter on his life.

But Zack was right. He needed to meet with the woman. How bad could she be, compared to Hojo at any rate? He would meet with her, but he wanted neutral territory. A conference room maybe.

He strolled out of his office into the alcove to talk to his secretary, Sylvia. He had a button for her on his absurdly complicated phone, but he had a hard time making himself use a phone to talk to a person less than 20 feet away. He supposed the method made more sense to the naturally sedentary. Sylvia was a thin, mean woman whom he had despised when ShinRa had first assigned her to him, but after they came to understand one another she turned out to be a useful and efficient assistant.

"Sylvia, could you make an appointme..." he looked up and stopped. Leaning against Sylvia's desk having what looked like an actual pleasant conversation with his prickly secretary was a young woman. A nice looking young woman at that, with long wavy copper colored hair, loosely tied and hanging down over a lean and relaxed frame. Her professional looking skirt and blouse showed enough for him to see long shapely limbs. And colored contacts, the popular opaque type that covered browns and replaced them with blues. A level of vanity that Sephiroth equated with cowardice. He hated anything that covered up the eyes.

"General Sephiroth?" She said. "I was hoping to get a few minutes of your time."

She stepped forward and offered him her hand, shifting a bundle of at least six file folders as she did so. She had marks surrounding her eyes- dents from recently removed chemical splash goggled. Coupled with her calm, professional approach and the fact that she was hunting him down specifically meant she could only be one person.

"Dr. Romera," he said, shaking her hand. "I was just about to ask Sylvia to arrange an appointment with you. Please come in."

She smiled cordially and stepped through the door to his office.

He motioned her to sit, and she took a moment to quickly swipe at the seat of the chair before doing so. The site caused Sephiroth to cringe internally.

"Sorry," he said, "my Soldiers are leaving Tessa Bar crumbs everywhere."

"Tessa Bars?" She said, "Is that what they're calling them?

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, I guess that's better than S&M."

She smiled again, and Sephiroth felt a stab of guilt for ignoring her messages. "I am sorry for not meeting with you sooner. Things have been a little hectic since..." He paused.

"Since you sliced my predecessor in half tail-to-tip?" she finished for him.

"Yes."

"It's quite alright General. I really only came up to give you something." She passed the folders to him, gingerly sliding them across the surface of the desk.

"Given Professor Hojo's... eccentricities, I didn't want to assume you've been privy to all the data concerning yourself. There's actually three full file cabinets on you alone. I had hoped you'd come down yourself to look at them, but since you seem reluctant, I pulled what I hoped were the most important files. Just in case, well, you didn't know… I thought you deserved at least to know."

"So you are making judgments on what I deserve?"

Her eyebrows rose at his statement but he didn't quite get the offended expression he had expected.

"I mean to only offer a common human courtesy." she said casually.

Well, there was her first mistake then. Thinking of him as human. He fingered the stack of files. Nightmares and horrors of scream filled hours brought down to a set of footnotes. Humiliations piled one upon the next from when he was far too young, before he trained his mind not to beg for mercy. Heat rose into his face, finally giving him the flush he had envied in one of his Soldiers a few days earlier.

"Some of it's pretty dense," she said, watching him closely, "genetic modeling, protein coding, mako mediated chemical reactions - if you need some interpretation I'm more than willing to help you with that."

"I'll be fine," he responded flatly.

"General, I've read most of what I've found down there." She looked up at him, eyes haunted with something that Sephiroth could not read. Maybe it fear, revulsion, or Shivra help him, pity? He ground his molars together causing the cords along his jaw line to stand out.

"I know I haven't earned the right to this knowledge, these intimate details of your history. If for no other reason than because I do not know you at all. But I'm hoping to at least get the chance to prove an acceptable scientific advisor for you."

He shut his eyes for several seconds. He knew he was being an asshole. She was only trying to help. But she was trying to help in an area that he himself did not want to visit. He looked down and flipped through the files before him. They were in chronological order, but the earliest started when he was about three years of age. The silence between them draw out.

"My origins?" he finally asked.

She drew in a slow breath before she could answer him. So he didn't know.

"I didn't find any data files earlier than these. But the earliest entries do seem to be indicating the work was already in progress." She reddened slightly and dropped her gaze.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to use that language. It's just difficult to discuss these reports without resorting to clinical terminology. I expect older records exist somewhere; Hojo was thorough in his documentation. He was very odd however in where he stashed his work. It's spread out and hidden everywhere, most of it not in the computer database." She shook her head slowly. "I've never seen anything like it. He built walls within walls down there, locks and puzzles and booby traps on the doors..."

"Look at me," Sephiroth said. "Turn you head to the right."

She was surprised for a moment, but then complied, and he peered at a half-healed gash in front of her left ear. He slid his forefinger along the comparable location on his own face and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Yeah," she said, "From one of those booby traps. It couldn't be materia-healed all the way because the blade was coated with tainted mako. The whole place was coated with tainted mako."

"You shouldn't be opening these areas by yourself. That's something Turks are good for. Next time call commander Tseng and ask for assistance. If he gives you trouble call me."

"OK, Turks. Thanks," she said, rubbing the injury thoughtfully. "And General, there's something else."

He waited.

"There's something down there that I have to take care of, but it's really not my call. I think it's yours. There's no way I can describe it here." She blanched noticeably. "You have to come down and see for yourself."

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, wishing he could see them clearly without the damn colored contacts.

"I'll be down first thing in the morning."

"Thank-you General," she said, sounding relieved. And instead of a handshake she gave him a nod and left him to his own devices.

Sephiroth meant for his own devices to consist of finishing his work quickly so he could get down to the training hall, but his mind had other ideas. It kept presenting him with the image of Dr. Romera's lips, an unusual shade of choral that picked up similar colored undertones in her skin. Translucent, cream like skin. Smooth skin. He forced his attention back to work. He had not been accustomed to this level of distraction by women, or men for that matter, but in the last few weeks it had become a constant annoyance to his normally focused mental state. He managed to get through a few more items before the images of color returned again, this time her hair. It brightened and reddened, morphed into a ponytail... and with horror he recognized who _that _belonged to. Sephiroth groaned through gritted teeth.

"Enough of that," he told himself, and left his work unfinished and went to the training hall early. Maybe there'd be some cadets he could thrash around for awhile.

A/N: I used to have a four hour Organic Chemistry Lab, after which it would take almost two hours for the damn goggle dents to disappear. We used to only eat dinner with each other after lab because we didn't really want to sit with anybody else with our geeked out goggle faces. Occasionally one of us would forget the damn things were there and walk out with them on. Nobody would ever say anything until you got all the way into the commons. Yeah, those were good days. I considered making the lady doctor arrive with forgotten goggles on, but it clunked up the scene.


	6. Song of Hojo

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N:** Sorry, this one just came out dark.

Moves and turns, recycles again

All fleeting, the one blind mass

And we powerless in it's grasp

This is what life is

----

But here I control, I make and shift and create

I am immortal,

Here I am the force of life, I push, I move,

I take

----

I own him, silver shrouded child

My love, my favorite,

Moved to the end, to the very brink in pain he goes,

And still returns whole

----

A thrill electric animates my limbs and hardens my sex

His pain a sympathetic electric in his nerve endings

His screams like moans of a lover

Before he returns whole again once more.

---

I made them

I own them all

But mostly I own him.

This is what life is

------------------------------------Song of Hojo

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth stood outside lab door for several minutes, for the moment just allowing tandem waves of revulsion and familiarity move through him. For years he had felt nothing at the sight of this door. Now things were changing and it seemed everything he had worked so hard to bury now was determined to have its way with him. Then he forced his attention to his own breathing, the constancy of his heartbeat, and the vibrant life force in his own body, pushing all thought and feeling away. He would survive this too.

The sight inside the lab that greeted him was a surprise indeed. Benches had been replaced, walls had been cleaned and painted, and a decidedly friendly looking clinical area had been built off to the side, probably for blood draw and mako injection. The walls between Labs One, Two and Three had been replaced with glass and he could see all the way through from one to the next. Hojo's office was gone. In fact he was standing in almost the very spot where he had dispatched the troll who held this lair for so long. There was no trace the event. The floor had been replaced. But mostly the whole place was somehow both brighter and less glaring than it had been. They must have altered the lighting.

He looked up and grimaced. Well, the damn track was still there.

"It's coming out next week," Tessa Romera appeared from a side room and joined his gazing at metal rails that snaked their way around the ceiling. "It's going to make a hell of a mess, I wanted to take it out first thing but I had trouble convincing The Rufus that it should go."

"The Rufus?"

She flinched.

"Sorry, did I say that out loud? I usually just say that part to myself. I've just never met a man so full of himself."

Sephiroth shrugged, amused. "He might actually like the sound of it."

"It looks exactly like ceiling track in this slaughterhouse I worked in as a student. They would hook huge slabs of meat on a chain attached to the car that rode on the track. I gather Hojo used it to move, um... subjects between tables."

Sephiroth nodded.

"I actually found something that looked like meat hooks in a cabinet."

"I remember."

"Well," she said with a shudder, "those are gone."

She brushed her hand on his arm to take him out of his reverie and he jumped slightly. He remembered far too much actually. He looked at her and thought about this woman, cleaning out Hojo's house of horrors, arguing with Rufus, feeding his Soldiers snacks. Getting hit with booby traps. She had her work cut out for her for sure.

"I am sorry I never contacted you while you were a graduate student at MIED. I meant to. I've read most of your work. Although I thought you were a man."

"Oh, right!" she clapped her hands together, suddenly delighted. "T. M. Romera, I think I did that on purpose to hide my gender. In some ways it's still a man's world in the field of research. Of course now I just write 'Dr.' "

She looked up at the tall general and smiled broadly. Her smile was lovely; it wasn't only snacks that was drawing his men down here. But for himself he found he was again bothered by her unnatural contacts. Eyes meant a lot to him.

"I was really excited to learn you had implemented some of my methods," she continued, "I had no idea. Talk about the left hand not cooperating with the right hand. My whole program was funded by ShinRa grants, but I couldn't get anyone from the science department to discuss my work or even review a paper. It seems professor Hojo was completely uninterested."

"Well he was rather single minded." Sephiroth said.

"You've a gift for understatement General. I've been disassembling his life here. I know what he was."

He looked at her sadly. It must have made her nervous because she took her eyes from his face.

"Where is everyone?" He asked.

"Oh, I gave them the morning off and canceled all the appointments. I didn't want you to have to be in here with a lot of people, given what we're going to look at." Her face fell into a hard seriousness. "This way."

He followed her off to a side exit and down a hall that clearly hadn't been touched by the renovations. The dingy whitewashed block walls showed chips and stains in the flickering of overhead fluorescent lights. The door they stopped in front of was in worse shape. It had been scorched and bent slightly off its frame. An iron bar was mounted around the edges of the door, crude metal hardware hanging off it where something else had been mounted. The lock must have still worked since she pulled out a ring of keys and turned one in the slot. Tessa stopped with her hand on the knob.

"Nobody else but me has been in here since we got it open. I don't think any of the staff knew what was here."

Sephiroth readied himself for some sort of particularly horrific Hojo atrocity. She flicked on the lights which winked once or twice before blazing the room into a harsh whiteness. The room looked worse than the hallway. And he remembered this room. It used to have a table in the middle. He didn't need to look at the floor. It was the same – dark mottled blood stains mixed with acid pock marks. The space had been converted to some other purpose since he had seen it last. Across from him healing tubes sat along the far walls, five of them. Small bubbles trickled upward through the luminous green filling each tube, nests of hoses snaking around their bottoms. The hoses jutted out of the tube walls like legs of a giant insect, pulsing with green venom. Each tube contained its own naked, unconscious human, limbs hanging loose and head lolling. Sephiroth felt the skin prickle not only on the back of his neck but arms and legs as well. All five beings had bright silver hair, drifting loosely around their faces.

He willed himself closer to one of the tubes. They appeared to be pre-adolescents, a mixture of girls and boys. Their skin was sickly looking through the mako solution surrounding them. They looked like dead things, like the extracted fetus kept in a formaldehyde jar. As he stared into the young face the eyes lazily opened and closed, flashing his own bright green, vertically slotted pupil eyes back to him. Only a practiced self-discipline kept him from lurching backwards.

"What are they?" he asked, his voice reduced to a harsh whisper.

"They're direct clones," Tessa said, "of you." When he didn't respond she continued.

"They're genetically identical, but they've been given conditions that allowed the genes to express differently. They're about 3 years old, accelerated through intensive growth therapy. That in itself will lead to premature organ failure. Plus they're telomere short. That's the redundant bit at the end of each DNA strand that gets chewed up every time a cell reproduces."

"I know what it is," he said dryly. So they were old, aged, even while in these young bodies.

The one to his right opened and shut its eyes. Again the spark of green.

"Can they... are they..."

"Are they sentient?"

Sephiroth nodded, swallowing what felt like dry dust down his throat.

"I don't think so. I haven't found anything to support that. The eye blinking is just an autonomic response. Their brainwave patterns are all consistent with a vegetative state. And I can't tell from Hojo's notes if he was expecting cognitive functions, because his references to living beings and clumps of unintelligent tissue, well, they read exactly the same."

"Destroy them." And without waiting to hear her response he strode out of the lab, filled with nausea and despair.

Tessa Romera stared at the five bubbling tubes and sighed. Well that had gone pretty well considering. The General had quite a reputation and she was half afraid he would whip out that monstrous sword of his and cut down all five tubes right there. Or maybe he would have… who knows? How could anyone even imagine what it might feel like to be presented with five helpless clones of yourself, made by the madman who raised and tortured you?

She had another hour before her staff returned, and Tessa was determined that none of them see this particular experiment. She would do this all herself; she could get them one by one onto the material disposal cart. She opened a bottle that was already waiting and upended it into the feed port, sealed the lid, and pressed the button for distribution. The mako solution seemed to pale slightly, and one by one five life signs flattened. Minutes later the pumps pulled all the fluid free, and she felt a squeezing behind her eyes as the young forms crumpled to the bottoms of their tubes. Another button and the bottoms opened. The bodies spilled onto the floor, wet and slippery like so many netted fish being released onto the deck of a boat.

Tessa moved from one to the next, needing to touch them to make sure it was done. She could feel nothing, no pulse, no weird sixth sense of life. As she touched the fourth, a boy, he opened his eyes and lips as if to take a breath. Shocked, she jerked away, and watched as he returned to the stillness of his siblings. _Just a nerve response_ Tessa told herself. And resolved never, ever to tell the General about it. Then she sat on the wet floor, mako solution seeping into her and clothes, and cried.

**A/N**: I used to be part of a group that did science demos for elementary kids. Cute stuff like static electricity and liquid nitrogen freezing. At one point we got some space from the University to house our stuff and work on making new demos. The space had previously belonged to the college of agriculture. It had a ramp that dipped down to these big bay doors that opened into a basement area, where the rough cement floor continued to slope crazily into large drains. Attached to the 20 foot ceiling was one of these tracks with a car on it, controlled by clunky boxes with the big push buttons like you might see in a factory. And in the back room was a rusty wall cabinet full of what I assume must have been meat hooks, ugly sharp things about two feet across. We could only imagine that there was at one time some sort of class on how to slaughter cattle. It was the creepiest place I'd ever been in my life. We really should have shot a horror movie down there.


	7. A Step

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **I think there was some concern regarding the clones, whether Cloud might be among a Hojo clone project at this point. Not to launch into a whole Cloud/clone discussion, but at this pre-burning of Nibelheim time a young version of Cloud should be running around loose somewhere, failing in his bid to join SOLDIER. I need him to do something for me later, and I'm kind of missing him, so he may be making an appearance soon.

"What's with you Seph? Your mind doesn't wander off like this. Well, unless you're thinking about killing something."

Sephiroth scowled at Zack. They'd been working on a mission plan for an hour and were back at square one again.

"You're not, are you? Thinking about it?" Zack moved forward on his seat and edged towards the door. Occasionally he grossly underestimated how badly he was annoying his commander.

"No."

Zack eased back into his chair. For almost two years he had been on a campaign to socialize and humanize the icy commander. It required shouldering an inhuman amount of verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse, but he was wildly successful, in a slow and steady sort of way. Sephiroth now had at least some sort of connection to his troops, he trained with them regularly and actually explained things rather than just thrashing them about from time to time and letting them sort it out on their own. He ate out with Zack at least once a week. He (sometimes) added normal social niceties to his speech, such as 'please' and 'thank-you'. He tolerated Zack in his apartments, although he had yet to visit Zack in his. (Zack suspected the man was pathologically afraid of untidiness and avoided Zack's office for the same reason). He'd gotten him to watch TV on at least two separate occasions.

But it was nothing compared to the last two weeks. Since Sephiroth had killed Hojo he'd seen more cracks in the facade than the entire last two years combined. Zack had the distinct feeling that Sephiroth was boiling under his skin and emotions, good and bad, leaking out on his face. He probably looked like his normal stoic self to everyone else, but everyone else hadn't spent two years making a study of the man. Something had been freed when he killed Hojo, and Zack was more than a little worried about how Sephiroth was handling it.

Zack leaned forward towards his general.

"What is it Seph? Talk to me."

Sephirtoth sighed.

"I had to make an unpleasant decision in the lab a few days ago. It's been... weighing on my mind lately." In truth the vision of the silver haired children floating in their green tubes invaded his thoughts day and night. And he knew why. He considered telling Zack everything, but then shook the thoughts away. He had no idea how to explain it so Zack would understand.

"I need to go down there and confirm that it's been done."

"Well," Zack said, popping up out of his chair, "That's easily fixed. Let's get it over with. I'll go with you."

"Why?"

"Because _I'm_ not afraid of the lab."

"I'm not afraid of the lab, Zachary."

"Yeah yeah, c'mon, up, let's go."

Sephiroth rolled his eyes and got up. He'd learned that there was nothing he could say or do that would deter Zack when he was in this mode. And he had tried almost everything, short of Lightning Bolt. And for that one he had been sorely tempted on more than one occasion. In the end was usually less painful to give in. The man's easy-going manner hid a shocking degree of stubbornness.

As they neared the lab entrance Zack motioned Sephiroth off to the side.

"Lounge first," he said, "That's where the snacks are."

They approached an open door that was emitting laughter, and music of all things. Never in his life could Sephiroth remember music from anywhere in the basement. He stepped into the lounge to find no fewer than three of his Soldiers grooving away to a popular song. Two pretty female techs wove in between them. They were familiar but he never thought them to be pretty before. The male intern he recognized. Glenn something. He had always liked the irreverent young man, probably because he annoyed Hojo. But now he seemed completely liberated, his light brown hair unkempt and sticking out at every angle, singing in a falsetto, lab coat billowing away from him as he spun, his arms swishing in the air.

It took a moment for the Soldiers to notice their commander.

The motion in the room stopped rather abruptly, leaving the music playing ridiculously on its own, like a man who continues to jabber on the phone without realizing the call has been dropped.

"Is break over?" Glenn asked looked up the two new arrivals, his dark rimmed hazel eyes relaxed and happy.

None of the Soldiers looked up at Sephiroth; they had unconsciously moved themselves into a line and stared at the floor. Sephiroth frowned at Zack, who managed with some effort to clear the mirth from his features.

"Soldiers, back upstairs," Zack said, and the three slunk gratefully away, careful not to let any of their body parts brush up against the General as they passed him. The lab techs decided it was also time to go back to work, all three smiling directly at Sephiroth as they passed. This had never happened to him before. What did they think he was? Didn't they know what he did to their previous boss? Then it occurred to him. It was because of what he did to their previous boss.

Zack went immediately over to the fridge, flicking the radio off on his way. He came out with several Tessa Bars in his hands.

"Jackpot," he said and tossed one to Sephiroth.

When they entered Lab 1 they found Tessa Romera busily moving from station to station, only slightly hindered by bright red haired leach following her every move.

"I don't think so Reno," her voice was still polite, but it was starting to get an edge on it.

"Oh, c'mon sweet cheeks, you don't know when another beastie is going to pop right though a wall, do you?"

She sighed. "No, and thank-you again, you're very handy."

He put those hands on the bench on either side of her and leaned over her suggestively, until his mouth was almost touching her ear.

"Who's your hero, honey?"

And then he was in the air. Tessa turned to find the space he had been occupying refreshingly empty and Reno fifteen feet away, on his bum, placed neatly on the floor between two lab benches. Then a wall of silver and black stepped between them.

"Hey General." Reno popped up like a jack in the box, grinning like he was expecting the both the man and the treatment. "Always nice to fly the friendly skies at the hands of one of you mako laden mutants."

"Out, Reno."

Reno opened his mouth only to have it clamped shut from behind, both his knees kicked out from under him. He knew who had him, where Sephiroth was Zack was never far. He communicated his disgust the best he could by rolling his eyes and let Zack drag him out the door into the hallway.

Tessa watched the whole scene mouth agape.

"What is he doing down here?" Sephiroth asked. She and her whole staff were still staring out the door where the other two men had disappeared.

"Remember when you told me to get a Turk to open the sealed parts of the lab?" she finally turned slowly to look at Sephiroth. "That's what they gave me."

"Tseng assigned Reno?" Was he out of his mind, sending that gremlin down into a sensitive area like the lab?

"I'm sorry," he said. "With any luck he'll get himself blown up by a booby trap."

"It doesn't look likely," she said, a tired smile on her face, "He's done four already and not a scratch on him."

Sephiroth frowned, remembering the scene when he came in. "What was he saying, something about beasties popping out of the wall?"

"Oh. Dismantling some of Hojo's old systems is releasing some bad mako, some entities, sometimes the animated dead," she shuddered. "Your guys deal with them, when they're around. Reno took care of two last night after everyone else had gone."

"You shouldn't be down here alone. You certainly shouldn't be down here with Reno alone. What time do you get in?"

"Around five."

He raised his eyebrows at her. Not at the early hour, he himself was an early riser. But he remembered some of her emails coming in with absurdly late timestamps on them.

"And when do you leave?"

She screwed up her face, softly biting her lower lip.

"Tessa?"

"Ten? Eleven?"

Sephiroth sighed.

"Elimination of mako entities and other... things is soldier work. I'll have a man here at five AM. The last Soldier will leave at six PM. You and your staff will leave with him."

"You know I thought I was in charge of this lab," she said, frowning.

"And I'd like to keep it that way. Who knows what Rufus will replace you with should you get eaten by a monster."

She looked at him, a hint of a pout on her face. He found his eyes tracing her lips again. Her lips were currently the most problematic distraction. He was grateful he couldn't see much else of her under her labcoat, and then had to bring his mind to heel as it raced off in an alarming direction.

"Please, at least until the area is clean." He said.

"OK, deal. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself though. It's not as though I've developed a social life since the move. And I can't sleep." She looked around the lab, and he now noticed how tired she seemed. "Every nook, every log entry, behind every sealed up door is a new horror. It gives me nightmares."

"Me too," he said.

"That's why I've been on such a tear to gut this place," she said, "I want it over with."

He nodded. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking suddenly frail and cold in this huge room. An angry flame erupted inside of Sephiroth. Hojo was still managing to victimize from beyond the grave. He hoped the planet held his soul in some separate dark place where pain was the medium for existence. Maybe he should have kidnapped him instead and kept him alive for torture. He took a moment imagine such a scene in gruesome detail. The flame was mollified for the moment.

Sephiroth brought his hands up and laid one on each of Tessa's folded arms, rubbing up and down in small motions. "You have to sleep. And as for the evenings... at least come eat dinner with me tonight."

"Thank-you." She smiled at him and nodded. He looked down at her for a long moment, wondering what the hell he had just done. Asked her to dinner? What was he thinking? He looked down into her eyes, momentarily fascinated by their shape. They were almost completely round. If only those damn contacts weren't keeping him from reading them.

ccccccccccccccc

"What are they talking about? I have to drag every word from him and I've been working at it for two years."

Zack and Reno had situated themselves outside the lab door where they could sneak glances in. But even Zack's ears couldn't hear through the heavy glass. Reno was still rubbing his jaw where Zack had grabbed him in that death grip of his. Just for that he wasn't going to tell Zack he could read lips.

"Well she is prettier than you. But not by much, yo. You are damn cute."

Zack grunted at the redhead but didn't take his eyes off the pair in the lab.

"Hey, Shiva fuck me, he touched her! He touched her arms! I've never seen him touch anyone."

"Really?"

"Well, not… nice."

"Looks like he likes her," Reno said.

"Maybe, maybe…" a slow smile was taking hold of Zacks face.

"So, does the general go for girls or boys?"

Zack shrugged.

"You don't know which way he swings?" Reno looked at Zack, genuinely astonished.

"I've tried to fix him up with both. He didn't respond well either way." Zack remembered a particularly bad result where Sephiroth had smacked up side the head with a training manual. Who knew a paperback manual could leave such a welt? "But I'd say from the looks of things, it's girls."

"Well that is a pity then." Reno was looking rather lovingly at Sephiroth's back.

"Reno?"

"Yo, Zackman."

"Get your guttermind off the General please."

Reno grinned at him. "What's the matter my love, jealous?"

Zack leaned away from Reno and rolled his eyes. And people told Zack _he _was hard to take.


	8. An Embarrassing Moment

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"General, is there something I can do for you? Or did you come down just to save me from Reno?"

"There is something," he said. He had almost forgotten. "I wanted to be sure... to check on the clones. That they had been destroyed." He felt suddenly rude and ungracious. After all she had contacted him in the first place, here he was questioning her. But she nodded professionally and walked over to set of charts mounted on the wall.

"These are our material IN and OUT reports. I disposed of them almost immediately after you left. Here's the entry, the generic five "subjects". I've kept any detail out of the official records."

"Thank you." He quickly scanned the other entries. 'Subjects' formed a big part of the material-out log entries.

"I injected sodium pentothal prior to releasing the tubes. There were… no reactions, no signs of pain or consciousness. No life signs after they were removed. Let's go look at the room. I want you to be able to see it's all gone."

She headed down the same side exit they had taken two days earlier, but Sephiroth had to turn around and look backwards to make sure of where he was.

"It's the same hallway," she said. "Just different now."

And different it was. Flooring, ceiling tile, and lighting had all been replaced. The cinderblock walls had been dry walled over and painted.

"How do you do this?" he asked. "I can't even get the carpet cleaned in my office."

"This," she said, "is a leftover from Hojo. A gift really. Apparently the maintenance union managed to get something in their contract stating they did not have to step foot in the lab. Ever. They threatened to strike. So I get to use outside contractors. Much faster."

They came to the room, which sported a new door and frame. The door was unlocked and the room itself was as pristine as the hallway. It looked new. He walked over to the spot where the old floor had been damaged by acid so long ago. Acid applied to the skin on his thigh while he lay strapped down and screaming on the table, just to test the speed of healing and the residual scarring. He had been nine. The floor was completely new, but his mind still saw the scenes of old. He walked over to where the healing tubes had stood, equally haunted by their memories. He stared at the spot for a long while.

"Do you think me a monster?" He finally asked.

"No General. You did the right thing." she came close to him. "But you're bothered by your decision?"

"In a way. But not what you'd think."

She waited.

"When I was young, I knew my life was different. I knew other people left the building and went to homes, to families. I used to imagine that when I was older it would be the same for me. Everyone I saw was an adult you understand. I thought that when I grew up, that I too would have a family, a home."

He paused and Tessa waited, sensing how difficult this was for him. His eyes scanned the newly remodeled room, the bright walls and new ceiling, but the distanced look in them betrayed that he was seeing something else.

"Later I realized the strangeness was in me and not just my life. All those dreams fell away from me. Or so I thought." he laughed once, a mirthless and bitter sound.

"It was easy to live that way. Machine like. Dreamless. Until Zack Fair pummeled his way into my life. I'll probably never understand why he did it. Stubborn, pigheaded man he is. He did something to me, changed something. I started to wonder again. If I might have a family someday."

Vaguely he wondered that he was speaking to her like this. Maybe it was because there wasn't any abomination from his past that could slip out and cause her to back away in shock and revulsion. She already knew all of his worst history. She had read the damn files. He sighed, let his head lean forward until his long silver hair obscured part of his face.

"So I finally broke down and asked Hojo whether such a thing was possible. He laughed. He laughed for a long time. It was amazing to me even then how such a small, mean man could reduce me to the insecurities of my childhood. He said there was no living creature in this world genetically compatible as a mate for me. So I put that dream back away. But looking at those clones, those children..."

"Sephiroth," Tessa said gently, "Listen to me. First, Hojo may have been some kind of genius but his obsessions gave him blind spots. I've found many errors in his conclusions already. Second we know he was a lying bastard. You can't know that he told you the truth. If this is important to you," She stopped and looked into his green eyes, dry but horribly pained, "I don't think you should close your heart to the idea until we look at this independently."

He nodded ever so slightly.

"We should start with a fertility test. I've looked at your code, and you are hybridized with something I don't recognize. Hybrid animals are typically infertile, but in your case it really is a very small percentage. We should check first that you're not shooting blanks."

He looked at her blankly.

"We need a sperm count on your semen. I would need a sample."

He rolled his eyes away.

"I know, you're probably sick to death of giving samples, but it's a simple thing. We could do it now, I mean, if you can..." her face reddened slightly as the image caught up with what she was asking.

"I would like to know now" he said, avoiding answering directly. He looked out the door in the direction of the lab. One of the techs must have said something funny because several others laughed.

She smiled at him, and winked as she left the room.

"OK," he heard her calling to her staff, "Everybody's on break for the next hour. If you've got tests going set them up so they can wait. Do not come back for any reason before 3:30"

The staff did as they were told, in fact they jumped to do as they were told, and Sephiroth heard several reply with 'yes ma'am!' He marveled at their alacrity; he hadn't expected such response to such a non-threatening person as Tessa.

"I'm surprised we got to stay that long," one of the techs said as the staff trouped out past Zack and Reno. "The last time the General came down we didn't get to see him at all."

"Maybe she's afraid he'll go all ballistic and slice someone else in half." the intern Glenn laughed made a sword swinging motion before catching sight of Zack's less than friendly stare.

"Oh, um, sorry Zack," he said and scurried out of the Soldier's reach. Zack heard someone else ask Glenn how he liked the taste of his shoe leather.

Reno was on his PHS, getting an earful of something. By the pointedly insubordinate look on his face it was probably Tseng. He snapped it shut and clapped Zack on the shoulder.

"Gotta run Zacko, have fun with your soap opera, yo."

In the silence that followed Zack began to worry uncontrollably about his sometimes homicidal friend. Why had Dr. Romero dismissed her staff? He stepped into the lab but Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen. Dr. Romero was at a side bench, setting up a microscope. She looked fine, not worried, not like she had a six-foot-two silver haired mako-enhanced Soldier having a psychotic break and running loose in her lab somewhere. His eyes scanned the labs, easy to do now with all the glass. The whole place was empty; Sephiroth must still be in the back in one of those creepy areas doing who knows what. He wondered how long they would be hanging around down here, and he really had to take a piss.

He headed over to the communal restroom next to the new blood draw and injection area. The restrooms were still under construction, and at the moment they had only one multi-stall bathroom with urinals used by both men and women. There was a sign on the door with a sliding magnet that could be placed next to the either the word GIRL or BOY written in crayon the way a small child would. It was actually very cute. The idea was that if a female staffer went in she would slide the magnet to GIRL. The last gal out would move it to the unoccupied slot, next to which somebody had recently drawn a picture of something that looked like a squid. At the moment the magnet was next to the squid. Zack slid it up to BOY, stepped in and stopped in his tracks.

He had found his commander. And in a way he never expected to see him. Sephiroth stood, leathers unbuttoned in front of a urinal as one might expect, except in one hand he held his engorged phallus. In the other a sample cup. The two men stared at one another for a moment, Zack trying not to drop his eyes but ultimately unable to stop himself. Sephiroth spun to put his back to him.

"Zack, out," he said with a surprising calm.

Zack would have complied but at that moment was overcome with such an intense burst of laughter that his legs refused to hold him up. He had to let his back hit the wall behind him to keep from falling over. Sephiroth shifted his weight to one foot and let his head lean off to the side. He might be stuck in this ridiculous position for awhile.

"Sorry Seph," Zack finally managed to spit out, "that's just not a sample I've ever had to give. Least not to the lab." Another wave of laughter took him.

"And you are certainly not making it any easier. So unless you've developed some suicidal tendency I suggest you let me be."

"Oh, right, I'll be, um, outside."

He could still hear Zack laughing long after he left.

"Moron," Sephiroth muttered to himself.

A long ten minutes later Sephiroth presented the container out in the lab, grimacing as he noticed Tessa was biting back a smirk.

"Hey, I got rid of all _my_ troublesome people. Zack is yours,"

"Sadly, yes."

Tessa set the container on the table and began to prepare the slide. The sample was a little greenish. Not a big deal in itself, probably just excess mako. She would check it later. Mako stabilized Soldiers tended to uptake from their environment and bleed mako off in the same way if they didn't burn up the excess. She never thought about it coming out in semen before, but Sephiroth's levels were so high he probably peed green. She smeared a drop across the slide with a practiced motion of the cover slip and maneuvered it under the microscope objective.

"Ah, you've got plenty of lively guys here," she said, "take a look."

Sephiroth eased his head towards the eyepiece. Inside a bright circle surrounded by black he could see them. Hundreds of tiny tailed things wiggling away.

"Hey," he said pleased, unaware he was smiling. He was still smiling when he looked up. Tessa smiled back.

"That's step one," she said. "I'll start sequencing tomorrow. You have full sequence records already, but as far as I can tell they were all done from blood cells. We need to use the cells of interest. In case you're a chimera."

"In case I'm what?" A vague memory of a fire breathing monster with animal body parts appeared in his head. His face darkened.

She smiled at him, guessing the source of his discomfort. "It's a clinical term for having different genetic codes in different body parts. Not the mythical beast the name is derived from. It's a condition that also occurs in the general population."

He nodded, and heard Zack talking to someone out in the hall. He heard at least two new voices, both familiar.

"Oh," she said, following his gaze, "I think we have an injection scheduled."

"More than one?"

"No, but they often arrive with friends."

Sephiroth frowned and headed towards the door.

"See you at six," she reminded.

**A/N:** I actually had to go on the internet and read about semen sample collection procedures, because I had no idea how that was done. Maybe there was some sort of special collection... container. Aparently not, unless you're a horse.

Chimerism is an actual condition; it comes from merging of cells that would otherwise develop into fraternal twins. The different genetic codes always read as siblings. The prevalence is unknown is but recent studies indicate it may be higher than previously thought.

Thanks again for reading.


	9. Vulnerability

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

Sephiroth looked at the two Soldiers now with Zack, who had apparently intercepted them from entering the lab. He addressed the third class Soldier first, a young man who was two years into his mako injection cycle.

"Benton, I gather you're getting loaded up this afternoon."

"Yes sir."

"And Richards," he addressed the second class Soldier whom he knew had completed his three years, and like Zack and other first and second classes were stabilized "Your reason for being here?"

Richards reddened.

"Um, moral support sir?"

"Good," Sephiroth said to the surprise of both. "This area is occasionally spawning mako monsters and other unknowns. You'll both remain here on guard until I come relieve you at six."

"Yessir," they both replied, pleased to be given light duty rather than a reprimand.

Sephiroth headed away down the hallway, Zack glued to his heels.

"So, spill, what was that all about? Why are you going back at six?"

Sephiroth stopped. "Zachary you are a nuisance beyond all measure. You do not need to know everything about my personal business," he said, his voice dripping with cold hostility.

Zack's face fell. "Fine," he said, walking away from Sephiroth. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The younger man's insides roiled with fury; his heart raced, lungs burned, and his stomach felt like someone had just sucker punched him. And he knew he was going to have to do it again, swallow whatever pride he had and just get over Sephiroth's callous rejection. For about he millionth time. Problem was it was getting harder to do. The closer he felt to his commander the worse it hurt when he spurned him.

"Zack?"

Zack stopped and crossed his arms over his chest to keep from shaking in his anger. The bastard was still his superior. He would pull himself together and do what was required of him.

"I'm sorry."

The ruminations of rejection and injustice flew from Zack's mind. Sephiroth had never apologized to him before for... well for anything now that Zack thought about it. But he wasn't quite done being angry. He turned, the look of suspicion, hurt, and spite still on his face. The look he never showed to Sephiroth. A hint of surprise washed across the older man's features.

"I am," Sephiroth said, voice low and smooth, "I am sorry. I'm far too sharp with you, all the time. It's a poor representation for how I feel about you."

All trace of ill will evaporated not only from Zack Fair's face but from his mind and heart as well. It was his nature. Incapable of holding a grudge of any kind, the insult was instantly and utterly forgotten. He grinned happily at his commander. Sephiroth had 1) noticed he was treating him badly, 2) apologized for it, and 3) made an admission of affection (sort of). Three breakthroughs in one day.

"You know some day I'm not going to come back after you kick me to the curb like that."

"Really?" Sephiroth actually looked a little concerned.

"No."

Sephiroth stepped forward, kissed his second on the side of the head, put his arm around his shoulders and returned them both to walking down the hallway. They traveled like this for several seconds, Zack too stunned to speak. He was in fact a little nervous; this was a bit too far from Sephiroth's normal behavior. Maybe he _was_ having some sort of psychotic break. He hoped he hadn't triggered a sexual interest with that episode in the bathroom. While he felt the General long overdue in that regard he was pretty sure he wasn't up to being the target of it himself. It was Sephiroth who finally broke the silence.

"I have a dinner date," he announced unceremoniously.

"What?"

"I have... a dinner date," Sephiroth repeated. He was sure he had spoken clearly the first time. He never mumbled. Apparently he had shocked Zack into temporary deafness.

"Oh,... oh!" Zack jumped out in front of his friend, suddenly a bundle of excitement. "Great! That's good!"

Sephiroth knew where this was heading. He had asked for it. He needed it. He hated it. He was going to get advice.

"Tonight?"

Sephiroth nodded.

"What are you wearing?"

Sephiroth looked down at himself

"I mean for dinner, you can't wear your regular army gear on a date with a girl. It is Tessa you're taking out, right?"

Sephiroth nodded again.

"So what else have you got in your closet?"

"All my clothing is of this nature."

Zack looked at his watch.

"We have to shop," he said.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"Well, what do you think?"

"I feel naked." Sephiroth was standing in front of a full length three way mirror while Zack hovered close by.

"Well, that's not all bad, since naked is kind of the hopeful end result of this whole activity."

"It's just a professional dinner."

"Mmm hmm, whatever you say, Seph."

He was dressed a plain white shirt, elegantly cut and open at the collar, and a pair of black leather jeans. They had been unable to talk him out of black leather for his bottom half, but at least these were free of the numerous pockets and metal hardware that normally hung off of his person. White vulnerable looking feet stuck out from under the black hem. It occurred to Zack he had never seen the General's bare feet before.

"And what are we doing for shoes?" Asked a clothing salesman who was clearly keeping his distance in the background.

Sephiroth looked at Zack. "I need special shoes?"

"Well you can't wear your combat boots."

"You're wearing combat boots."

"But _I'm_ not out on a date."

Sephiroth cringed at the word. He thought about what 'special' shoes might entail. He thought about the perpetually suited Turks and their ridiculous dress shoes.

"Boots," he said. Zack rolled his eyes.

"Actually, we have a selection of fashionable boots…"

In the end Sephiroth wound up looking quite a bit like his regular self, just toned down a bit. Well the shirt was different, he had surprised Zack by wearing it out, trying to get accustomed to it no doubt. Sephiroth carried two bags, and Zack had insisted on carrying his commander's leather coat. He'd never picked it up before; it weighed a ton. As they walked back to the ShinRa building Sephiroth got almost as many stares as he did with his normal outlandish outfit. Zack gave him another head to toe appraisal, and decided there was nothing to be done for it. There was just no way Sephiroth was going to look normal.

"So where are you two going?"

"Lucia's."

"Whoa, nice. They pay you too much, you know that don't you?"

Zack looked at his friend, the wind slightly moving the lightweight fabric on his chest. He stopped him before they reached their home and workplace, and put a hand on his shoulder. How much more accessible he was this way.

"This is the right thing for a personal engagement. You don't always need all that leather cutting yourself off from the world Seph."

Sephiroth looked into his friends sincere eyes, then at the intimidating bulk of the ShinRa building.

"Give me my coat, Zachary."

ccccccccccccccccc

After Sephiroth dropped by his apartment to unload he had just enough time to do one more thing done before he had to go on this so-called 'date'. It would only take a few minutes. He made his way to Turk Headquarters. Sephiroth almost never went to Turk HQ. While he wasn't frightened of Turks exactly, he wasn't immune to the animosity he knew was directed towards him. He didn't like Turks, and Turks didn't like him. In a way he appreciated the simplicity of that relationship, but it didn't encourage him to spend time with them.

If he came across Reno he was just going to light him on fire. Or at least his flashy red hair. But his real destination was Tseng's office. As he passed through their area he sensed their usual scrutiny, noticed some surprise at seeing him there, but didn't feel the open hostility. Odd. He thought probably his feelers were off; hell he'd been off all week.

Sephiroth stopped in front of Tseng's secretary. He fished around in his mind for the man's name, Derek. He'd been Turk commander secretary since before Tseng's time. He probably knew more secrets than his boss and half the floor combined.

"I need to see him," Sephiroth said, a statement rather than a request.

The man Derek showed no response, his face an even better mask than the trained killers he served. He simply went to Tseng's door and knocked.

"Come."

Tseng looked up to see his secretary slip through his office door.

"General Sephiroth is here to see you."

"Really?" Tseng's surprise was so great that the word escaped before he could get control of his tongue. But there was no danger, really. Derek was after all the perfect confidant. "You mean the man actually deemed to come here himself, instead of demanding my presence in his office when he wants something? This is new. What does he want?"

"He didn't say."

Tseng hated dealing with Sephiroth cold; his unpredictable violence being only one reason.

"How does he look?"

"Strange."

It wasn't a helpful answer for Tseng, the General always looked strange. What he needed to know was what kind of state he was in.

"Angry?" Tseng asked.

"No. He looks like he always looks. A little shorter."

Tseng frowned, why would he be shorter?

"Send him in please."

Either way this was way more interesting than the budget report Tseng had been working on. He considered remaining behind his massive desk, in the position of power. But it just didn't feel right and so he came out in front of it and leaned his butt against the edge.

The big general practically filled the doorway as he entered, and managed somehow to fill the room once in it. He had the presence of Bahamut-Sin and always struck Tseng like something unsafe to keep indoors.

"What can I do for you General?" Tseng asked, and noticed the man was uncharacteristically wearing something white. He had a white shirt under his coat. And some stylish boots rather than his usual thick soled combat boots. That accounted for the half-inch height drop. Derek had a good eye, but unfortunately half an inch did little to reduce the man's intimidation factor. Unable to account for the reason in these dress oddities Tseng's organized mind simply logged the details away for later.

"You assigned Reno to assist in the lab?"

Tseng raised his eyebrows. Sephiroth was nothing if not direct.

"Yes, I did. You don't like Reno?"

"Nobody likes Reno."

"I like Reno. You should as well. It all depends on your definition of 'like'. I like him for locks, electronic security, booby traps – he's the best I've ever seen. You would prefer I send something less than the best?"

"I would prefer he not sexually harass the staff."

"Ah." Tseng worked to keep his face neutral, actually having to flex the area around his left eye to squelch a tick that wanted to express itself there. It was a tick that reserved itself for Reno exclusively. Lately every time the redhead did something bothersome, which was pretty much all the time, the corner of Tseng's eye would spasm.

The General must have noticed this practiced stiffening because his eyes shifted to that area of Tseng's face. Tseng turned to keep it from view, and then thought he should remember his own lessons of late. The one the General had in fact recently reminded him. He turned back, letting his face fall into an apologetic grimace as he rubbed the affected area.

"It's a nervous twitch courtesy of Reno. The man is going to give me an aneurism someday. But I meant it when I said he was the best for this job. You're taking a particular interest in the lab?"

Sephiroth glared at him.

"Of course. Sorry. I can send Rude down there with him. He usually manages to tone down Reno's behavior, that's why I have them partnered together. Will that work for you?"

"It's better."

Sephiroth turned to leave but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. Tseng seemed different to him. Maybe all his perceptions were going to hell and he could no longer trust what he was thinking, but Sephiroth was pretty sure Tseng had never before apologized to him, given him a helpful concession, or showed him a pained look on his face. He figured what the hell; he was going to ask.

"You're different," he said.

Tseng smiled slightly. That was definitely new. That knowing, superior expression however was not.

"You know General, it doesn't hurt to show a little vulnerability once and awhile. It does marvels for binding people to you."

Damn, he knew it. More fallout from that episode in Rufus's office. Had he bound Tseng to him in some way? A small growl escaped his throat despite himself, and as if things weren't bad enough Tseng seemed amused.

"I bind my Soldiers just fine and I never show them vulnerability."

"Ah, and yet I would wager my paycheck that they all know what your weakness is."

"And that would be?"

"Them."

**A/N:** Thanks for all the nice comments I'm getting. I especially like the ones that appreciate the writing. Vanity, vanity. I know however I have a weakness for subtlety, which is fine until the reader gets lost. There's a few bits in here that I think are sublte but might be just plain vague. If so feel free to point that out.


	10. Something in Common

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **I know, this is just a little tag, some information that needs to be conveyed and doesn't fit with the chapters that flank it. I know what _should _be done with it, but I'd so much rather have these Zack and Sephiroth talk.

"So what'd you two talk about?" Zack had loaded himself in his regular chair in the General's office.

"Work."

"Oh, please tell me you just made that up."

"No Zack, I mean you, get back to work."

Zack thought for a moment, and then shook off the diversion attempt.

"You really talked about work?"

"What would you have me talk about?" Sephiroth asked, "My childhood? That nightmare in Wutai? Weapons maybe?"

"Well OK, so you are a bit conversationally challenged. We need to get you a hobby."

"I do not need a hobby. Luckily the thing the lady doctor is most interested in is mako disorders and soldiers, something I am also interested in."

"Well that's good, you have something in common then!"

"We discussed you."

"Me? What? Why?"

Sephiroth gave him a blank and utterly unreadable look. The one that Zack knew indicated a stop of all flow of information.

"Fine," he said, turning to leave, but then stopped, "Just tell me one thing, and I promise not to ask anything more about it."

"What?"

"Did you have a good time?"

Sephiroth considered.

"Yes," he said.

Zack smiled and left, and Sephiroth finally smiled to himself. He hadn't lied to Zack; they had discussed all his men, their mako levels, performance, psychological issues, and Zack was included. It was just good to be able to get to him once and awhile. And it had been a nice evening.


	11. Just a Little Thrashing

Sephiroth entered the lab slowly, carefully banishing optimistic thoughts as they arose. The email from Tessa said nothing more than requesting that he meet with her, but he knew what for. Three days had elapsed, enough time to do the sequence and analysis on his genetic future. Tessa had an office now with big glass windows looking out into the lab, which would make it easy to monitor things, but she wouldn't be able to nap in there. Or chew out a staff member. He'd remind her later to get some blinds.

She motioned Sephiroth towards one of the chairs. She came around her desk and sat in the other across from him, a file on her knees.

"I have some good news, and some challenging news," she said. "We'll start with the good news, because it's simple. You should have no problem combining the genetic code in your sperm with any female."

"And the challenging news?"

"Those unusual genes you have, the ones I can't determine the source of? They're highly dominant. One of them allows you to uptake mako at your accelerated rate from the environment. The fetus would do this as well, and it would have to flow through the mother. She would get poisoned by the mako flow during the gestation period unless she was pre-stabilized at a high level."

"How high?"

"At least 200."

"200 is higher than some of my Soldiers!"

"I know it's kind of a barrier, but at least it's not impossible. There may be other ways to handle this mako load, there may be temporary methods to bring the mother's level up, and although I hate to say it I think Hojo may have perfected a method of tube gestation..."

"No tubes!"

"Ok, ok. Please Sephiroth, I just don't want you to get too discouraged, we haven't looked at all the options yet."

He nodded, rubbing his forehead between his eyes. Tessa looked at him sadly.

"I need to tell you something else as well."

He looked up, his face a stony mask. "Go ahead."

"The sample you gave me, is it always that color?"

"What color should it be?"

"Whitish."

"It's green. It's always green."

"OK. You're ejaculating some mako in there. I don't have similar cases to compare with because I think all of your Soldiers shoot white. The level in your semen suggests you might impact a partner if they were not robust against exposure. And the mako will flow right through latex. It should be no problem on an occasional basis, but if you've got regular partner who is not already tested to handle mako exposure..."

"No." He stopped her. "There's nobody," _and there never will be_ he thought.

"Thank-you doctor," he said, and without another word strode from the lab.

Tessa sat staring at the folder in her lap for a long time, frowning, brooding.

"You know if you like him you should just tell him instead of sending him out of here in a huff."

Tessa blinked hard before looking up. "Thank-you, Glenn, for your always sophisticated social analysis."

"Hey, it's part of my function here." Glenn the intern was in her doorway, leaning against the frame. In another month he'd have his time in and get his certificate, and he'd be a full fledged researcher at ShinRa or wherever he chose to go. Tessa hoped he'd stay on, because despite the fact that he was a smart aleck she would be hard pressed to run the lab without him.

"Seriously Tess, he's been down a lot. Just to see you I think."

"Just friends, Glenn."

Glenn gave her a look to let her know he wasn't convinced.

"So what'd you do, give him some bad news? Is he alright?"

"Yes and yes. He's alright. Just disappointed I think. And it's a confidential matter."

"Oh yeah, I know everything's confidential for that one. Every other Soldier gets scrutinized by the whole lab, but Sephiroth gets _special_ treatment."

"Well he is special. Don't you think he's special?"

"I know you do."

She smiled at him.

"Hey, what do you say to ice cream?" he asked, "I got a coupon for the place on the corner just burning a hole in my pocket."

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth tried to push the conversation with Tessa from his mind but it refused to budge. His offspring needing ridiculous amounts of mako in the mother. Himself a "hazard" to a lover. Maybe a woman like Tessa might love him, but then what? Offer her a life with a monster whose seed and very fluid would put her in danger?

Mental pain boiled inside of him like hot tar, and he was sure it was showing on his face. That's all he needed, other people looking at him and viewing his private hell. He pushed it away. All away, down where it came from, down with all the other memories of abuse and torment. Down with the memories of all the times he reached for love with the desperation of a child and got injury and pain instead.

Eventually he found himself at the training hall. Yes, this is where he needed to be. Group drill was just starting.

"Gear up, full contact bokuto today!" Sephiroth barked as he strode in.

The Soldiers in group drill had been setting up for grappling and didn't see Sephiroth as he walked in, and several of them jerked at the strained, feral sound of his voice. Zack whipped around quickly and stared at his commander. It had been a long time since he'd heard him like that, and he saw what he hoped to not. Sephiroth's face was completely void of emotion. Not the flat look of a person in full control of their emotions, but truly emotionless, the inhuman visage of one who is not only emotionally vacant but who also might never have had a feeling of any kind in their life. He heard several of the men draw in their breaths sharply at the sight of him. It was like suddenly looking close up into a tornado, terrifying in the purity of its impartial destruction.

"You heard the General, MOVE!" Zack yelled. Damn, this was going to hurt.

Sephiroth had picked up the six-foot long wooden bokken that simulated his normal weapon in weight and length, but he hadn't bothered with body armor- no shoulder guards, no vambraces, no thigh plates... another bad sign. He had his full leathers on and looked like he was planning to wear his battle coat for the exercise. He simply stood without sign of impatience or anticipation while waiting for the men to ready themselves.

Zack could feel the collective apprehension as he slapped on his own armor; they weren't scheduled for full contact until next week. He hoped none of the men had been fool enough to arrive today hung over. He retrieved his own custom wooden weapon, the same size and weight of his usual Buster sword. Practice with the wooden swords kept them from killing one another, but not from breaking bones and knocking out teeth. Full contact drill was a rough activity that normally required a rest day after, and that was without Sephiroth showing up in some sort of mood.

"What's he got up his butt today? I haven't seen him like this in a long time." Marcus, the other First Class trainer, had come up behind Zack to pull his own Bokken from the rack. They peered at Sephiroth, a stony pillar waiting in the center of the room, both remembering how it had been when they were coming up through the ranks. Mostly it had hurt.

Zack stepped up to Sephiroth, hoping to be the one to take this edge off him, if he could. But it wasn't to be.

"Give me your three best, not you, no instructors. Not yet." Zack shook his head to Marcus, who was approaching with the same idea that Zack had.

The men were all looking forward eagerly. Normally the General requested the three weakest for three-on-one work, and there was quite an argument as to whether he did this because the weakest needed the most work or because the three-on-one stretched the General's ability too far for him to take on the better players three at a time. Zack had told them which it was, but he knew they weren't entirely convinced. His stronger fighters were in a constant state of annoyance over never being selected for this drill. Well they were about to find out first hand.

"Alars, Britton, and..." He thought. The man was relatively new but hot with his swordplay lately. "Jensen."

All three leapt forward and took positions surrounding Sephiroth. They were eager, a little confused by the demeanor of their general but in the whole not understanding what his look meant. Zack understood, and it broke his heart a little. He thought they had moved beyond this cold cruelty and was sorry to see it back. At least in the training hall. He knew it was part of Sephiroth and would probably always express itself in the field. But something had happened since he left the General this morning and there was no time to ferret it out now.

"No timer," Sephiroth said. Zack sighed. So he was just going to work them until he had all three down.

Zack paired off the remainders. But the others didn't even start their matches; the whole floor was immediately mesmerized watching the three-on-one with the General. Sephiroth hadn't followed his habit of waiting defensively. That was only a training hall habit after all. His true nature was offensive, and he had taken after his first man and struck him on the ear, sliding past him before any of his opponents had swung a single stroke. That was Alars, and blood ran down the man's neck in a small stream from where the cartilage had split in two like the skin on a ripe fruit. Now Sephiroth was on the outside of their circle, trading blows with Alars and catching him again on the back of his knee with an sickening crack before the other two could join. Both their strokes missed as Sephiroth took to the air, swinging, blocking and still striking on target. Zack was pleased to see they all three jumped also to alleviate the temporary height advantage, but Sephiroth had a vertical jump and hang time none of them could match. In fact if they let him near a wall where he could work with the rebound it would be all over, but they at least seemed to have the sense to keep him in the middle of the room.

The action was so blazing fast Zack could hardly follow it, but it looked to him that Sephiroth hadn't been hit yet. Every forth or fifth attack of the six foot bokken was finding an unarmored mark, but at least the attackers weren't buckling under the abuse. All three were a blur of blazing green eyed, gritted determination. If they hadn't understood earlier, they understood now. Britton spun, successfully avoiding the General's stroke, but it brought him in too close. Before he could even see his target Sephiroth's elbow connected with his mouth, sending a spray of blood a as the man's head snapped back. There was a small delicate clatter as a few teeth landed somewhere on the floor. Britton himself landed at Zack's feet.

"I recommend you stay down," Zack said.

"No fugging vway," Britton managed to slur out of his damaged mouth. He jumped back into the fray but his glory was short lived; the blood running down his throat interfered with his breathing, and the hesitation it leant him opened him to a bokken hit to the side, then Sephiroth popped into the air and laid one booted foot onto the side of his head.

Zack motioned for some of the spectators to pull Britton's limp body out of the way.

_One down_, Zack thought.

The end didn't take long after that. Jensen, who hadn't seen any significant field action, was momentarily distracted by his teammate's demise and glanced at his crumpled form on the floor. Zack heard a strangled "No!" from behind him where Marcus was standing. They both knew well the rule, never look at your fallen comrades while in the heat of the fight. Jensen didn't immediately pay for his error, but Alars, without help distracting the General, took three unanswered blows followed by a stab of the wooden sword's hilt to his gut. It went in so deep Zack thought for a moment it might puncture him and come out the other side. Alars fell to the floor, weakly coughing a crimson spray. Zack grabbed his collar and dragged him off to the side before he could do some fool thing like get up again. Jensen was now alone with Sephiroth. He was good, fast, but getting beaten backwards. He made a swing at Sephiroth's head that Zack thought would connect, but Sephiroth dropped faster than what should have been gravitationally possible and swept the younger man's feet out from under him. Then he was over him, bokken point down on top of the man's throat.

Sweet Shiva, Zack thought, he's going to kill him.

"Jensen, yield!" he yelled.

Either because he heard the desperation in Zack's voice, or perhaps out of some survival instinct, Jensen let his weapon fall and lay still. Zack held his breath until he saw Sephiroth slowly withdraw. He stepped callously over Jensen's form to a clear spot on the floor, the men backing away from him as he passed. He looked at Zack, the cold passionless gaze still intact.

"Now," he said.

Zack understood him and nodded to Marcus. They took ready stances on either side of him, both men deadly serious. Marcus was good, almost as good as Zack. And although Sephiroth looked completely fresh Zack suspected he was tired. He just didn't pant like other men, and he never sweat. He apparently didn't need to. During all their time fighting together Zack had felt the man's skin blazing hot or deathly cold and neither seemed to affect him. But Sephiroth did tire, that he knew.

"This won't go as easy for you, Seph," Zack said, his anger and aggression now lit and thinly veiled.

"Give me your worst," Sephiroth replied, not looking directly at either of them. He was defocused at a point between them, keeping them both in his peripheral. All three men waited, tensing for the first move. Sephiroth made it, a vertical jump straight out between them. They jumped almost instantly to match, but he still had the height on them and had chosen his direction towards Zack. They crossed blows with the wooden blades and Sephiroth's foot swung at Zack's head. Zack managed to jerk in midair, rolling off most of the blow and probably saving himself from a knockout. But he couldn't land the move, and he hit the floor backside down with a thump that echoed through the large hall. Part of his mind registered that was going to hurt tomorrow, but for the moment he felt no pain, only the electric jerk of his reflexes and the stinging, enraging burn of mako. He jumped back up and joined Marcus, who was furiously engaged with Sephiroth. The General worked to maneuver his attackers to be in each other's way, but Zack and Marcus had trained for many years together, and they were better at getting their target sandwiched between them than the previous three had been. Sephiroth jumped free again to get out from between them, and this time Zack noticed that when he and Marcus came up to meet him that their level was now the same. The General was tiring. Zack took two rapid swings in the air while the Sephiroth was forced to defend against both him Marcus. The second hit home and glanced off Sephiroth's temple, breaking the skin. They landed and eyed one another, looking for the advantage. In the lull Zack made a mental note that the previous group did not do this, did not take time to think. Instead they had forced an unnatural frenzied cadence to their fight. He would work on that later.

He and Marcus edged farther away from one another to better flank Sephiroth. Marcus would have noticed the General's fatigue as well. Sephiroth probably wouldn't jump this time. He caught Marcus's eye and knew what he was thinking. They would feint together, and whichever Sephiroth went for would retreat and draw him while the other came on. It was unfortunate that Sephiroth himself had trained them in this maneuver, but it was a hard one for anyone to deal with and worth a try. They feinted and Sephiroth went for Marcus. A mistake, Zack thought, to choose the weaker, but as Zack came on he realized Sephiroth hadn't actually taken the bait, he parried Zack's stroke and moved inside and back fisted him across the jaw with a blow that nearly sent him sprawling and split his lip.

Marcus was on him in an instant, catching Sephiroth in the ribs but getting his nose broke in the process. Now all three were bleeding and Zack launched in with the same forced frenzy he would have liked to correct in his underlings. He knew it was wrong, it was the very thing Sephiroth was best with; the faster you went the more he sped up. He was only vaguely aware of landing some shots, receiving some more, then something solid hit him in the ribs. He heard them crack and went down, panting in a heap. He couldn't see Marcus anywhere; he must have been downed already. Sephiroth was standing over him, bloodied and eyes blazing.

"Yield," Zack croaked, "I yield." He hated doing it, but he had yielded so many times over the years to this man, and supposed he would many times more. To this one and no other.

Sephiroth lowered his weapon, and then dropped it clattering to the floor. His eyes finally took on a cast of feeling, but Zack was damned if he could identify it. Not that he had much chance to contemplate the matter. Sephiroth disappeared from his view as he walked slowly and wordlessly out of the hall.

Zack tried to push himself up but so many of his body parts seemed on fire. Particularly his ribs. Then he heard an unlikely sound: laughter. It was Marcus, maybe 15 feet away from him, also a bloody mess and trying to get up.

"Hey Zack," he said, "Was that just like old times or what?"

Zack couldn't help but laugh, even though his ribs punished him dearly for it.

"Ow, ow, ow," he looked around at his dazed troops. "Well what are you standing there for, somebody get some materia!"

"Lazy buggers, we should thrash them," the pathetic looking Marcus said, sending Zack into another fit of painful laughter. As if they could thrash anything in their state.

Zack looked around and smiled, all his anger spent, the worry over his commander pushed aside for the moment. The other three victims were already on their feet, albeit unsteady, and he would be feeling better soon. Broken ribs, damn, they would take awhile, but no permanent harm done. And he had to admit, it had been kind of fun.

cccccccccccccccccccc

Zack limped out of the elevator towards Sephiroth's apartment. He hadn't called ahead, but he had already checked for him at his office. He wasn't there so he was probably up here. Or on the roof. Zack cringed at the idea of having to haul his aching butt up to the roof.

He paused in front of the door, not sure of what he was going to find in there. He procrastinated by examining the texture of the door.

"Zack you coward, get on with it," he muttered to himself. Then he knocked.

"It's open."

Zack paused, since when did the General leave his door unlocked? Brief paranoia flashed over him. Maybe it was some sort of trap. He opened the door cautiously and poked his head in. Sephiroth was on the couch, Masamune on his lap. He looked calm enough, and he was polishing the blade, usually a good sign since the General liked polishing his weapons. It was some sort of meditative exercise for him. He motioned for Zack to come in.

Zack lowered himself carefully into one of the leather chairs, looking at the huge tapestry hanging above the General's head on the wall behind him. It was of an ancient Wutai city, graceful buildings surrounded by lush vegetation. It used to hang in the palace and the emperor had actually given it to him after Wutai lost the war. Something about how he couldn't bear to look at the image of Wutai in its former glory and he hoped his conqueror would keep the memory for him. Or something like that, Wutai was kind of a mystery to Zack. He didn't know why Sephiroth had hung it there, as a badge of victory? A memento of guilt? Or maybe he just liked the thing. Zack had asked once and not gotten an answer. That was awhile ago; maybe he could get an answer now. But tonight he had bigger fish to fry.

"You've recovered, I see," Sephiroth said.

"Yeah, well you know, mako boy that I am." He paused. "Been a long time since you beat the crap out of me like that. I remember you used to do it weekly."

"You are much better now than you were back then." Sephiroth said.

"Because you've worked with me a lot in the last couple of years. But I'm still no match for you."

"Nobody is."

Sephiroth said this without arrogance, or even a hint of pleasure. In fact he sounded heartbroken by it, and Zack suspected correctly that he was talking about more than just swordplay. He waited, hoping for more, until his internal sense of Sephiroth timing told him it was time for a little push.

"Seph, what's wrong?"

Another long pause and Zack could see him struggling with the desire to tell, to speak. It was always such a struggle for Sephiroth, maybe it always would be.

"I want children," he finally said.

It was a simple statement, a normal desire. But Sephiroth was anything but normal. Zack remembered the scene in the bathroom at the lab. Had he been giving a sperm sample in regards to this?

"And there's some problem?" Zack asked.

"There's a problem."

"Because... there's no match for you?"

"Apparently the mother would need to have a stabilized mako level of 200 or better to support a pregnancy of my offspring."

Zack gave a low appreciative whistle. He himself was stabilized at 240, but his number was among the highest in the program.

"Well, so you're not going to find a woman like that walking down the street, but levels can be brought up."

"I know, after careful screening to find a candidate who can tolerate high levels, then go through the whole process." Sephiroth said.

Zack winced. The "whole process" took years and was painful, not to mention even after screening some candidates failed to stabilize or wigged out. Or worse.

Sephiroth gave a small humorless laugh. "I guess I could put an ad in the paper or something, find some mako greedy bitch interested in that. I was hoping to have a woman I loved bear these children. Foolish, maybe. Can you imagine asking someone you love to go through mako infusion?"

Zack looked at the floor. Soldiers did it for their own reasons, but no, he couldn't ask a woman he loved to go through that. He thought of Tessa, whom the General appeared to have some interest in. She was soft, gentle. Kind. The thought of her writhing on the table in pain while green poison invaded her body made his stomach flip.

"Seph, lots of couples adopt or use surrogates..."

"It's OK," Sephiroth said, "I just need to shelve this idea for awhile. Concentrate on getting myself under control. I've been a little crazy lately."

"I've noticed." Zack stood up to go and winced, one hand going to the injured ribs.

"Why don't you go get that healed?" Sephiroth asked, frowning in concern.

Zack smiled at him. This was the man he loved, not the cold abuser and killer who was let loose in the training hall earlier. He accepted the other because it was part of his friend, but he was happy to see him go.

"I did already, they were completely busted, so this is as far as it'll go for now." he said, not beyond appreciating the look of mild horror on his friend's face.

"Are your men alright?" Sephiroth asked.

"_Your_ men are just fine, General."

ccccccccccccccccccccccc

Two days later they had group drill again. The participants from the last session had an entire rest day; the others had been assigned to scrub blood off the floor and maintenance of weapons and armor. Zack didn't want to waste the difficult trial of two days ago, not while there were lessons still fresh that might be cemented. He ordered another full contact bokuto day. While the men geared up he heard Marcus off to his right.

"Oh-oh."

Zack turned and saw Sephiroth enter. Excellent. He gave the command to line up and the stragglers rushed to comply, now noticing the General was there.

The whole group stood before Sephiroth, somber and silent. They were nervous, none daring to look directly at him. He owed them no explanation; he was their commander and they would, they must, accept him. But he drew in a slow breath, hardly believing he was going to take a piece of advice from Tseng of all people.

"I apologize for Tuesday," he said. Most of the men looked up. Even Zack looked a little surprised, although maybe not as much as he would have a month ago. "I have... a bit of a temper." It was vague, but it was the best he could offer.

The admission caused a ripple of small noises to move through the group- voices, moving feet, several tongue popping sounds that Sephiroth had no idea what they might mean, and one short whistle. Then a voice from the back, full of lament and envy:

"_I_ should have such a temper."

The group laughed. Sephiroth recognized the voice as Britton's, the man he had downed first. It occurred to him that Britton had been getting pretty arrogant as of late. Maybe it was just as well he took him down a few pegs. Sephiroth held up his hand and they immediately retuned to silence, except this time every pair of eyes was riveted on him, faces open.

"I am sorry that I walked out as I did. But I am not sorry for the thrashing. Your performance was abysmal."

Groans issued from the group, but now they were grinning. This was familiar territory, the verbal berating. In their hearts they knew they were the best there was and also that there was no shame in being beaten by the General. Everyone got beat by the Sephiroth, even Zack.

"I want to see the three I had on Tuesday, one at a time to go over your errors. Who's first? And to Sephiroth's astonishment all three jumped forward immediately, each as eager to work with him as they had been two days ago. He scanned their faces fondly.

"Jensen, you're with me."


	12. Along the Line

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **I noticed in the stats of hit counts that the hits on Chapter 10 were lower than Chapter 11. That's never happened before, and I think it means about 20 of you missed chapter 10 because I posted 10 and 11 on the same day. It's very short and just ties up a couple loose ends - probably not critical. Just thought I'd let you know. I won't do that again.

After a couple of days Sephiroth found himself even tempered enough to visit the lab again. The door to Tessa's office was open so he knocked on the frame. She was stubbornly picking a label off the back of a new office chair. She brightened when she saw him.

"General, how are you?" she asked, then felt a bit ridiculous asking that type of question of him.

"I want to apologize for my abrupt manner of a few days ago."

"It's quite alright. These are complicated issues."

Sephiroth thought to himself that this apology business was getting easier. Especially if the other person was going to make excuses for your bad behavior. And Tseng was right about it being handy.

"I also wanted to tell you not to spend any time looking at other options for me. I need to take a break from these matters for awhile."

"I understand."

Sephiroth found he was sorry that she did. He realized that somewhere inside his brain (or maybe some other organ) he was hoping she'd be... disappointed.

"Would you like to go to lunch?" He asked.

"Yes," she said, "I'm dying to get out of here for awhile." She abruptly shed her lab coat and walked out the door. Sephiroth marveled at the speed and directness with which she acted on her decisions. It rivaled his own. It wasn't until they were in the elevator that it occurred to Sephiroth that he had done it again, asked Tessa to go somewhere with him, only this time hadn't he just told her, Zack, and damn it himself, that he was going to avoid romantic pursuits? Although it was just lunch, after all. And the last eating engagement with her had been harmless. Fruitful even. But just to be on the safe side he decided some extra company would be better.

"Do you mind of Zack joins us? I owe him lunch anyway"

"Oh yes! Let's bring Zack. He's darling."

"He's too young for you."

"Right, everyone's too young for me. I'm an old lady of twenty-four"

"Twenty-eight", he corrected her, and then wondered why he would be correcting her.

"Twenty-eight," she parroted.

Sephiroth studied her face, and saw colored heat slowly creep into her cheeks. He grabbed her upper arm and made her face him.

"You've been lying to ShinRa about your age," he said.

She looked around but there was no salvation to be had in the confines of the elevator. "I've been lying so long about my age it's entrenched in the records. It would be useless to say otherwise now; I would ironically be accused of lying. Truth is I never finished my high school; I just took an entrance exam for the university when I was 14 and so I had to lie on my application and say I was 18. I was a pretty busty 14 year old so it worked out OK, and I'm from such a backward part of the world nobody ever requested records from me."

"Where are you from?"

"Dajou."

He nodded, scouring his mind for details on Dajou, but all he could come up with was something odd about their sexual practices.

"The families are… blended, right?" he asked.

She laughed. "Yeah, that's one way to put it. They tend to be polygamous on both sides. In some ways the children are better cared for, but in other ways you can get away with hell because there are extra parents to play against one another. It gets kind of confusing whose children are whose, so they just gave up recording that kind of thing all together."

"You had more than two parents?"

"I had two fathers when I was young. I could tell which donated the genetic code, he had the hair," she pointed to her coppery head, "But it didn't matter. I loved them both. Then Boujin, my genetic father was killed in a fishing accident. Later I got another mother."

"And here I am with a shortage of parents."

"Hardly fair, is it?" she smiled apologetically at him.

"Nothings ever fair," he said.

They exited on the third floor which housed Soldier HQ. They walked along in silence for a few seconds, and then Sephiroth nudged her with his shoulder, knocking her off balance. She shot him a mock annoyed look.

"You're younger than I am." he said.

"So?"

"Well here all along I've been thinking- smart lady doctor, running this big lab, knows all this crap about me that even I don't know, and here you are twenty-four."

"Are you saying that mistaking me for your senior has been mollifying your behavior?"

"Not really."

"Good, because Planet save us, you are already beyond arrogant."

"ShinRa would never have given you this job if they thought you were twenty-four."

"Well, good thing at ShinRa records are king," she said, now actually annoyed.

They walked along in another few seconds of silence.

"So, does this put me in the range for Zack Fair? He's what, 21?"

"You don't want Zack. You wouldn't be able to keep up with him," he said, managing to keep the alarm he felt out of his voice.

She laughed. "From what I hear nobody can keep up with him. He has to have at least four women in rotation all the time."

"He is a busy guy. Speak of the devil."

They ran into Zack just as he was heading for the cafeteria and asked if he would join them for lunch. Zack, sensing some free non-cafeteria food at the expense of his commander, eagerly accepted.

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Later that night Sephiroth stretched out on his oversized king bed and thought about his day. Mostly about lunch. He had allowed Zack to select the location, and Zack had chosen his absolute favorite routine - a hop on the downtown Midgar trolley (while it was moving, for Zack it wasn't any fun at all unless you jumped while it was moving) to the Peanut Barrel, a place quite a distance away from the ShirnRa building that had patio dining. If you could call it 'dining' at a place where the patrons chucked peanut shells on the floor while they waited for their burgers and beer. Zack was in tearing high spirits; he was never more charming that when given the opportunity to show off his favorite things to someone new (Sephiroth never suspecting that one of the things that Zack was showing off was Sephiroth). They talked about battles they had been in together, Zack somehow managing to smooth over the gore and pull out entertainment. Tessa was particularly impressed that the Wutai emperor had given Sephiroth something, apparently the ultimate Wutai gesture of respect to a conqueror.

Sephiroth rolled over onto his back and thought not for the first time what a pity it was that he had never shared this bed. It was enormous not out of optimism, but because this was the size of bed recommended for this size of room. Simple. He had had offers of course, from both men and women attracted to his exotic looks and powerful position, but he could no more lend his body to impersonal sexual use than he could willingly lay it back down on the cold metal tables of his past. The idea sickened him.

He sent his mind back to their lunch, Zack's easy smile and Tessa's lilting laughter. He knew she had been doing some hard and grim tasks in that lab, yet she managed to find joy and laughter in almost everything. Much like Zack, she was, in that regard. And yet as bright and lively and lovely as Zack was, Sephiroth was pretty sure her eyes had been on him more of the time. And Zack's too, for that matter, although that didn't surprise him, Zack was ever attentive to his commander. What drove the affection of such creatures for him he had no idea.

They had jumped off the trolley, again while it was moving, but this time Tessa balked at the feat. He had grabbed her about the waist and landed them easily on the sidewalk. She hardly weighed anything; he was so used to throwing around his soldiers, large muscular men. Her waist was firm and soft at the same time, and she had hooked both her arms around his midsection. He had been suddenly sorry for what Zack had referred to as 'cutting yourself off from the world leather'. She hadn't let go of him immediately, nor him of her. Zack had looked at his watch, declared himself dreadfully late for something and hoped they wouldn't mind of he literally ran off. He gave Sephiroth one of those rough kisses on the side of the head and disappeared. Sephiroth told Tessa that Zack probably was late for something; he arrived at most of his meetings three minutes past the starting time and at a dead sprint. Tessa had laughed and laughed, and as they walked he could feel her body shaking next to his, leaning into him. Warm. Pliant. Yielding. When they reached the building she had looked up at him, face open and accepting.

"You really are lucky in some ways you know," she said, then stood on her toes and kissed his other cheek, so soft her lips hardly brushed his skin.

And he had wanted her then, a violent torrent in his mind and body wanted her right then, in the street, and damn the consequences. He imagined pushing her against the wall of the ShinRa building, yanking up her skirt and tearing panties off underneath. Undoing his own leathers and plunging deep inside of her while her coral lips parted in ecstasy. Kissing those lips, claiming them as his and his alone while his hands ran over her breasts and he exploded inside her.

Returning to his senses he knew he would not do this, not while he had an iota of control left in his body. He couldn't bear to harm her or anyone else through what should be lovemaking. He did want a lover. His bed had been entirely too empty for too long. But he would have to settle those other matters first.

Releasing his grip, he reached for the kleenex box.


	13. Heading Out

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **This is a side trip to the main story, a field trip for our soldiers if you will. I began to feel sort of disingenuous writing about these guys without giving good thought to what they actually _do_, obviously they're not designed and paid to sit around the ShinRa building worrying about their personal lives. They're supposed to fight, so fight they will.

"Seph, where are you going?" Zack did a 180 in the hall to keep pace with his commander. Sephiroth was headed for the landing pad and had all his gear with him.

"If you would get out of bed at a reasonable hour you would have checked your messages already and known we have a code one at Reactor 20. I'm heading out now and leaving you in charge. Planet knows why."

Sephiroth was in a foul mood. It was almost ten o'clock and he would have liked to brief Zack before leaving but he didn't answer his phone or PHS all morning. The man he sent to Zack's apartment confirmed he wasn't there, probably not been there all night. And Reactor 20 was about his least favorite place on the planet. It was surrounded by swamps that made operations difficult. And there were mosquitoes. Sephiroth hated mosquitoes.

"I want to come with you."

Sephiroth stopped and glared at his second.

"You're hardly in a position to ask for favors today. Why would you want to go out to Reactor 20 anyway?"

"C'mon Seph, it's been eight months since we've been out to the field together. Every time you go out you leave me here and when you send me out you stay. I need," he stopped, Sephiroth normally didn't respond well to anyone else's needs when he was in a mood, but he couldn't think of any better way to make his argument so he charged ahead. "I need to fight at your side some of the time, not just opposed to you in the training hall."

Sephiroth considered Zack, his face, violet eyes, and soul completely open and ready to rise or fall at his commander's word. And as annoyed as he was with Zack at the moment Sephiroth had to admit he was right. Soldiers were first and last brothers in arms and the General normally made a point to try and rotate personnel on assignment, including himself, so they would all have field exposure to one another. Except between him and Zack. He had been doing just as Zack said, leaving one of them in charge of HQ at all times. That's what it meant to have a second in command. But their tandem performance was probably more critical than any other in their operation. Had it really been eight months? He decided HQ could handle itself for awhile.

Zack fidgeted as he waited for his commander's decision. Zack was a poor waiter. Sephiroth let him wait a little longer.

"You're with me. I'll put Marcus in charge while we're gone. You have 30 minutes to get your gear and get to the transport."

"Yeah, you mean it?"

Sephiroth glared at him. He never said things he didn't mean, but it was hard to keep up his annoyance with Zack since the man was practically levitating in excitement just to be with him.

"Thanks Seph," Zack popped toward his commander to deliver one of his usual quick kisses to the side of his head, but this time in a fit of exuberance he gave him a second right on the cheek.

"Argh, Zack!" Sephiroth growled, but Zack was already in a full sprint down the hallway, laughing as he went.

As Sephiroth wiped a decidedly wet spot from his cheek he wondered at how impossible it was to not over-encourage Zack. But he also smiled a little to himself; the thought spending a few days and nights at Reactor 20 seeming a little less bleak.

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Sephiroth and Zack leaned out of the open door of the airship, wind from the rotors buffeting past them with ferocity that forced them to squint and caused the General to tuck his long hair into his coat.

"I don't see a fucking thing!" Zack yelled over the noise.

Sephiroth scanned the landscape, an endless expanse of marshy grasses and tufted briars. Something was down there though; he could feel it like an electrical buzz in the back of his head.

"Get the reactor on the horn," Sephiroth yelled to the pilot.

"_Took you guys long enough!" _

The radio crackled heavily, not odd in itself since the mako plumes usually interfered with radio communication, but at the moment the reactor was silent.

"Reactor, we don't see anything threatening from up here, what's your status?" Sephiroth asked.

"_Our status, you moron, is we are off line, no power, and cut of from the rest of the world!"_

Sephiroth glowered at the disembodied voice from the radio. Zack almost felt sorry for the guy on the other end, probably the reactor director. They were often ungrateful and rude when the teams came to help, but this guy clearly did not know he had Sephiroth on the other end. It wouldn't go well for him later.

"Reactor, do you need assistance with wounded inside the perimeter?"

"_No! The problem is outside! OUT-SIDE? Do you guys know what that means?"_

"Reactor I repeat, no threat visible outside the perimeter."

The transport was sweeping around the complex and by now had made a full circle.

"_Yeah, well, it's quiet now. The damn things go quiet about every three hours. Three hours of silence followed by 30 minutes of destruction. The things are big, they shook all six towers until they ruptured their pipes."_

"How long until the next active period."

"_Another two hours."_

"Are you certain?"

"_Positive."_

"Reactor we are going to ground and will look around. We will keep you updated. Airship out."

Sephiroth clicked off the transmission before waiting for anything else. Large creatures that disappeared and reappeared at the same time together? He had never heard of such a thing. The six reactor towers ringed the complex and formed part of the wall surrounding it, so the things were attacking all around the complex. He scanned the quiet bog below them. Something just wasn't right here.

The road leading up to the front gate was gone. Gone as if it had never been there, replaced by the same boggy landscape.

"Sir, there's a hillock over there that should support a landing," said the pilot, breaking his train of thought.

"No. Keep it in the air. Get about 8 feet above that high ground, we'll stage one unit on the hill. Bolin," he yelled to one of his Soldiers in the back. "Get Unit A ready to exit, short jump."

"Yes sir," Bolin, fitted on an earpiece with microphone, the other six Soldiers following suit. Sephiroth's own earpiece started making noise "Bolin, check", "Zack, check", "Jensen, check", ..." Sephiroth noticed Zack paying attention to one of the grunts in Unit A, a group of ten regular army. Although Zack made friends wherever he went, Sephiroth had little interest in the regular army as long as they executed the functions he laid out for them. And they always did, because one of his guys made sure it was so. Bolin shoed his men out the door, pushing some of them roughly, then disappeared through the opening himself.

Sephiroth then directed the pilot towards a swampy area closer to the complex wall. He could see some damage there and wanted to get a closer look at it. But the swamp was still giving him an odd feeling. "Stay away from the water," he yelled to the pilots, "Twenty feet at least. We'll jump. Jensen, you stay in the ship with Unit B, you rest of you three are with me. If you haven't done a bog jump before, just remember go down butt first. If you stick your feet down we'll never get you out."

Somebody muttered something about 'swamp enema' and Zack frowned at the greenish water through the open door.

"Can I stay in the ship?" he hollered at Sephiroth. Sephiroth stared at Zack, mouth open, unbelieving that he could say that to him just now. Then Zack grinned maniacally at him, thumped his friend on the shoulder and geronimoed out the door; butt down as instructed.


	14. In the Swamp

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **Some materia comes into play here. I'm having it dissolve when it's "used up" just because that lays better for story telling. I hope that doesn't bug anybody too badly.

All four hit the bog with undignified plops, and struggled momentarily like beetles on their backs to extract bodies from the sticky mud. As Zack pulled his backside out of the goo his waistband scooped up large quantities of the stuff and brought it up with him.

"Aw, fuck," he said, scooping out the gritty mud while some of it ran down between his cheeks. There was nothing to be done about it of course; he knew that before they were done the guck would be in every crevice. The other Soldiers were flinging off mud in a similar fashion, all except their commander, who seemed rather clean except for the back of his full length coat, which now floated it's tails on the knee high water line. It occurred to Zack what he had done- wrapped the thing around himself as he went in.

"Gotta get me one of those," he muttered as he stomped towards Sephiroth, every step hindered by the suction the mud put to his boots.

"Most of the area is like this, about a foot of water with this muck under it. But watch out for holes."

"You've been here before, General?" one of the Soldiers asked.

"Many times," he said, making a disgusted face as he slapped a mosquito dead on his neck.

"So what's the pla..." Zack never finished his question because the world erupted around them. Great green columns burst from the water, showering them with bits of plant and mud. They writhed in the air, twenty feet, then thirty feet, all four men momentarily entranced. Then they had their large swords out, hacking through pieces of the things. They were soft, but so thick it took several slices to hew one down, and once the upper section was separated from its source it disintegrated into water which repeatedly doused their heads. As soon as one was taken care of it seemed two more took its place. They could hear gunfire from the air ship, the grunts directing their fire in a concentrated pattern to cut through the swampy fingers one by one. Likewise Unit A on the hillock was firing into the things, the dry ground seeming to offer them some buffer at least.

After ten minutes of this Sephiroth cast a shield to give himself a breather. The others had been casting shield heavily as well, it was the only thing that seemed effective. He had already tried fire on whatever they were. They didn't burn, they steamed and slowly dissolved but overall brute force hacking was faster.

"Airship, this is Sephiroth. How many of these things are there?"

"_Hundreds, thousands," _came the crackled reply,_ "They're surrounding the whole reactor!"_

He saw Zack mouth an obscenity as he took shelter behind Sephiroth's shield. Sephiroth gave him a tired look.

"Well," he said, "with any luck this won't go on all day."

The air around them shimmered and the shield dissipated as they went back to swinging. Now some of the things were attacking the reactor wall, thrashing madly and crumbling parts of the wall and towers. Zack saw some figures on the top of the wall, firing into one of the attacking entities. So the reactor was not without defense after all, he thought.

Minutes later they heard bullets sizzle through their group. They had no time to contemplate this new problem, since one large column came up directly beneath them, scattering them. Sephiroth tried to push off from the thing but it was as infirm as the quagmire below them and his feet sank into it instead. He sliced his sword dangerously close to his own feet to free himself just as two high powered rounds hit him in the leg. One shredded his thigh muscle on a through and through and the other parked itself, lodging in the femur.

"Seph!" Zack saw his commander go down into the muck out of the corner of his eye, but there was nothing he could do; he couldn't even get his own feet under himself properly and was in danger of being pummeled to death by the green snake like thing looming over his head. Sephiroth felt the water cover his face as the back of his head was pushed into the mud, then he forced Masamune up to the hilt in what he hoped was one of the green pillars. He tensed his fingers as the thing shot upward, jerking him free by his sword arm and flinging him twenty feet from his group until his back hit another squishy column. He put the bad leg downward and landed on it, letting it sink into the mud with searing agony. He launched a shield around himself and used the good leg, the one he purposely kept free, to work himself loose.

Zack joined him after heroically slogging through the sticky mud, slashing as he went. He put his hand on Sephiroth's thigh, because between the dark leather and the dark wet muck he couldn't tell how much his friend was bleeding. His palm came back coated red.

"Shit, Seph," Zack pulled out a green materia. Sephiroth knew it had to be done or he might bleed himself unconscious, but he grabbed Zack's wrist.

"Cure1 only, not like I'm using my legs much in this fight anyway."

Zack wanted to protest, but he knew better. Only heal up as much as was absolutely necessary, save materia for fighting. Then if there's anything left at the end patch up the wounded.

"Cure1," he said, and had to just assume the skin had healed over.

"How in the hell did we get gunfire into our group? What's wrong with Jensen up there?"

"I don't think it was ours," Zack said, "I think it came from the wall."

Sephiroth twisted his head up to look at the wall, then over to the transport. As they watched a dozen of the larger, forty foot tall fingers reached up towards the airship, wrapped themselves around it and sucked it into the swamp. Immediately the landscape cleared, silent and pristine as when they arrived.

"Zachary, go over there and check for survivors please," Sephiroth said into the eerie calm.

Zack ran, or did what might pass for running for a man whose feet were nearly glued to the earth. He stopped right on top of where he was sure the air ship had disappeared. He sunk his Buster sword down into the mud until the water was up to his armpit, and felt nothing. Nothing solid, no metal. He continued moving through the area, trying again and again with no better luck. He spotted a piece of regular army uniform, pulled a man up by the arm, and removed his helmet. Open lifeless eyes stared back at him. He was wondering what was the appropriate thing to do with the body when it was jerked from his hands and disappeared into the swamp. Zack took a step backwards, Buster sword aimed downward in case he should he should feel a similar jerk on one of his legs, but none came. He thought maybe it was the Lifestream, claiming the body of the soul it recently took. He wasn't sure. But the whole swamp must be rich in mako, that's why the reactor was here. Weird stuff always happened where there was too much mako lying around.

Zack trudged back to Sephiroth, shaking his head gravely. The other two Soldiers had joined their commander, and Sephiroth's mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes emotionless. One of their own had been on that ship. Jensen had been on that ship.

"We won't last long out here, we need to get inside. We're moving to that little dry spot in front of the gate. I hope they answer the door, but if not at least we'll have our back to the wall."

"Well, they'll come out and check," Zack said, "They know we're out here."

Sephiroth gave him wry smile that Zack didn't quite understand.

Slowly the whole compliment straggled to the front gate, some limping, some carrying the injured. The gate was a massive thing that had been bent and twisted, the electronic call pad a wet, shorted mess. Bolin's main concern was his ten grunts from Group A, many of whom were wounded, and Sephiroth sent his three other Soldiers to look for a way in. Zack he kept with him, his arm still slung over Zack's shoulders to support the injured leg. He looked up the imposing and mostly vertical entryway.

"Can you scale that?" he asked Zack.

"Yeah, I think so. Barely."

"You might have to. But first you're going to do something for me."

Zack looked on attentively as Sephiroth slid his back down against the wall until he was seated.

"One of those rounds is lodged in the bone."

Zack sucked in his breath. The thing with mako enabled healing is that it took objection to foreign objects. It would move the flesh to push the thing until it was free of the body. But when bullets bit into the bone they stuck hard, the wound would agitate around for weeks sometimes trying to dislodge it instead of healing.

"The med kits were all on the airship," Zack said.

"I know. I'm sure you have something on you though." Sephiroth dipped into a pocket and pulled out his last two green materia. Neither of the orbs looked very lively, and Zack had already given his last to Bolin to help a critical case on his team.

"It'll be enough," Sephiroth said.

Zack pulled out his Leatherman, flipped open the blade and dragged the edge sideways across his thumb. Sharp. It was always sharp, because he kept it sharp. He looked at Sephiroth's leathers.

"You want to take them off or slice them?"

"Slice them," Sephiroth smiled, "wouldn't do to be caught out here with my pants down."

Zack inserted the tip of the blade into one of the bullet holes and deftly slit the leather down to his boot. Then he repeated the action the other direction towards his groin. Sephiroth's leg twitched slightly.

"Careful," he warned.

"I'm always careful," Zack said.

He didn't need to look for the entry mark; he could see the muscle twitching under the skin, trying to move the bullet, tearing and swelling the flesh as it did so. Zack pressed his thumb into the area making sure he could feel the top of the hard metal object. It must have hurt, but Sephiroth was already leaning back against the wall, eyes defocused and blocking the pain. Zack thought he could use a hand. Or at least a friendly face. He scanned over their dazed and mud caked group, and spied a shock of bright gold amidst them.

"Cloud, get you butt over here," he called.

A beautiful boy of maybe fifteen trotted over to him and knelt where Zack indicated. His blue eyes widened as he saw the Generals bare leg with Zack's rather crude looking tool poised over it. Sephiroth's gaze wandered over to Cloud.

"It's OK, Seph, he's a friend; I trust him."

Sephiroth returned his gaze outward, never showing a hint of connection to his body as Zack sliced the blade across the swollen lump, cutting deep through skin and muscle, attempting to get to the bone. He felt the edge drag across what he hoped was metal. The wound had already filled with blood and it was impossible to see.

"Cloud, hold the edges apart,"

Cloud did as he was told, although he was so pale Zack worried that he might pass out. He flipped the multi-tool over to wield the pliers, made a stab into the opening, fished around until it seemed to grab something sticking up. He hoped it wasn't a bone fragment. He wasn't sure if Sephiroth would grow back bits of bone if they were actually missing.

But holy hell the thing was stuck. He gave a yank, twisted, rocked, and finally it came free with a disturbing crackling noise. He held it up in the air and smiled. It was a bullet alright. He hoped Seph was right that was the only one, he really didn't want to do that again. Blood was pouring from the wound now and Clouds hands were covered in it. Zack scooped up the weaker looking materia and gave it a Cure1 just to stop the bleeding. He was right about it, Cure1 was all it had left and it disintegrated in his hand. He pushed the edges of the incision back together and picked up the second orb to finish the job when he heard Bolin swear.

"Fuck! Zack, you got any more materia over there? I think this one's bleeding internally and I'm going to lose him if I don't get a Cure2 on him at least." Bolin still had his back to them, leaning over a very pale grunt.

"No," Zack said, but Sephiroth was paying attention now and grabbed his wrist.

"Yes."

This time Zack did try to protest, shaking his head and mouthing "NO". Sephiroth ignored him. But as Bolin came over to collect the materia and was greeted with a bloody scene with his general at the center of it, bullet still resting between the jaws of Zack's discarded Leatherman, he also tried to shake him off.

"I'll heal," Sephiroth said, tossing the last materia to Bolin thereby forcing the man to catch it. "Take it, that's an order Soldier."

Bolin swallowed but did as he was told and went back to his work. Zack snapped his fingers to get Cloud's attention and with a quick hand motion sent him away. He didn't mean to be abrupt with the kid but at the moment he wanted him gone.

"Shit, Seph, I wish you hadn't done that."

Sephiroth smiled. It had been a long time since a mission had gone south on him like this. He was grateful Zack was with him. His other three had returned, reporting no good ideas on how to get into the damn place, and as Sephiroth suspected nobody from the inside had come to the door to "check" if they were out there. Bolin joined them momentarily.

Sephiroth looked up at the high walls surrounding them, the tall smooth door. At least near the door there were some structures, some ledges. Over twenty feet up, but he was pretty sure Zack at least could get a handhold at least.

"It's looking like the only way in there is over this gated section. Zack's got the best vertical jump, and I think he can make it solo, but I think all of you can if you team boost."

"Whoa, wait, why would we all be going in?" Zack asked.

"Because I'm sure there's a way to open that door from the inside. The place is full of heavy equipment and trained people."

"So why don't they open it?"

"Why do they have armed guys in there? Why did they shoot into our midst, or tell us we have two hours clear time on the ground when we didn't?"

"You're saying they're trying to kill us?"

Sephiroth nodded.

"Why?"

"They've got something in there they don't want us interfering with. I want you guys going in as an infiltration team, expecting ambush and gunfire. Get this gate open. I don't care who you have to kill in there."

"Seph, at least leave one of us with you," Zack said.

Sephiroth smiled, a sardonic bending of his lips.

"If we can't get that door open we're not going to last through another attack, no matter how many of you are out here. I'd rather put all my resources on the best bet. All five of you are going. So get to it Soldiers."

"Yes sir," they answered in unison, and approached the gate to set up their boosts, Zack casting one baleful glance backwards.


	15. Wrapping Up

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"Sir?"

Sephiroth opened one tired eye to the grunt standing over him. Had he dozed off? He had maybe lost too much blood, and he could feel his body sapping his energy trying to heal the wound. He had been dreaming about gunfire. The blond grunt peering at him looked so familiar. But of course, he had seen him earlier, it was the kid Zack had called over to help with the extraction. His hazy mind couldn't remember if Zack had said his name or not.

"Yes, Army," he used the generic name for the non-Soldier fighters.

"I looked around the edges of the steam outlets of the reactor, and I found some materia for you. It's raw, but it's a pretty good sized piece."

Sephiroth pushed himself more upright and reached for the materia. It was a nice piece alright, might even support Cure2. But if he overestimated not only would he get nothing out of it but it would collapse on him. Raw pieces usually only supported Cure1.

"Think it'll hold a Cure3, Army?"

The boy's clear blue eyes went wide with alarm.

"No sir!" he said.

Sephiroth smiled at him, and then smiled a little wider as the boy blushed, realizing the great General was teasing him. The poor kid was obviously nervous to be so close to Sephiroth, but even in this state he had a peculiar determination about him. He also had what looked like a steam burn on his forehead.

"Cure1," Sephiroth said, holding the piece to his damaged thigh. The word was just a mantra, the real skill laid in the mind to send the correct command cleanly enough to channel the materia into doing its job. Even with training most people lacked the strength of mind and clear focus to direct the power in the materia. He felt a tingling in his leg, after which the flesh looked and felt better.

"Thanks kid," he said, "What's your name?"

"Cloud Strife"

"Thank-you Cloud Strife. I'm afraid I'll be dozing off again. Will you stay and stand watch?"

"Yessir!"

And Sephiroth drifted off. The healing would go quicker if he slept, although normally he wouldn't dare without one of his own around him. But Zack had said he trusted this boy.

Zack returned alone, dropping down over the top of the gate the same way he went in. Looking happy but anxious, he saw that Sephiroth was still where he had left him. He was asleep of all things, but Cloud was there.

"You can go now Cloud, thanks," Zack said. But the kid didn't budge.

"The General asked me to stay."

"And I'm telling you to go, that's an order, Army," Zack said impatiently.

Cloud looked miserable.

"It's OK Cloud, you can go." Sephiroth had woken.

"Yes sir," said Cloud, and he slipped quietly away.

"What are you doing back?" Sephiroth asked. "And how long has it been?"

"Almost two hours, and we've got everything locked down in there. You were right, we had to kill most of the muscle, and we tied up the head honchos whether they looked like they needed it or not. Felt pretty good actually."

Sephiroth smiled to himself at Zack's idea of feeling good, and heard a loud groaning to the side.

"Gate's coming open. That was the harder part, figuring that out. But it should be only a few minutes now."

He looked at Sephiroth for a long moment.

"I couldn't find any materia in there. They claimed they shipped it all because they were behind schedule. That's not right, is it?"

"Probably not."

"Anyway, sorry, I let you down with that."

"You've never let me down Zachary."

Zack turned to hide the flush that came to his face, looking towards the gate as it gave another groan and tremble.

"Let me take a look at you leg again, OK?"

Zack gingerly pulled aside the flaps of leather and touched the wounded area. The skin was entirely closed and the muscle less swollen.

"This looks pretty good, Seph, even for you."

Sephiroth smiled at him.

"Your pet mucked around in the swamp and found me some raw materia."

Zack grinned. "I knew he was good for something. He's a resourceful kid."

"What's he doing in the Army? He's too young. Did he come out of the Soldier cadet program?"

"Yeah, failed the Dasich criteria."

"Hmm. Well he can try again in a year. But he doesn't seem egotistical enough to make Soldier."

"He's not. But how would that be, huh? A Soldier you didn't have to beat obedience in to for once?"

Sephiroth snorted a laugh.

"You like him? How's his focus?"

"Fantastic. He can summon like nobody's business."

"But he'll never stabilize at a high enough mako level with a low Dasich score. His mind will get lost."

Zack nodded.

"Is he quick?" Sephiroth asked

"Very."

"Might make a good Turk."

"I can't see him as a Turk. Too honest, too open. He fights with a ton of heart, though. And his loyalty is fierce, damn near died for me on that last mission outside Junon."

"Hmmm," Sephiroth mused sleepily. He knew what Zack was up to. Loyalty was the thing Sephiroth prized the most and Zack wanted some help finding a place for the kid. But he didn't mind Zack's machinations. He resolved to give it some thought later, since at that moment the door cracked open enough to allow men through, and they all filed in to the welcome of four happy and proud soldiers and a field of confused reactor workers.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

The paperwork from the Reactor 20 incident took forever. It turned out the reactor administrator had sunk his pipe down below the legal limit. Sephiroth suspected he had, because if they kept their pipe within 100 feet of the surface the planet always spawned the same beasts they were used to fighting. Weirdo stuff with a thousand tentacles only came up with new intrusions. What the bastard was doing with the excess mako was distilling out crako, an expensive new designer drug that gave temporary speed and strength almost to the level of a Soldier. It was highly addictive and destructive, the rebound from the drug leaving the user flesh eaten and deranged.

They had cought them just in time, a few hours later and an airship would have whisked the remaining product and the villains away to a life of ill-gotten luxury. As it was the airship and its pilots had landed just in time to be captured as well by Sephiroth's team. It was actually a more expensive ship than the one Sephiroth had left with, so from a financial standpoint ShinRa accounting was still pretty happy with him. But he had lost men. One soldier and ten grunts. He took particular pleasure in handing his captives over to the Turks, letting Tseng know what they had cost him. Tseng promised they would get special treatment. Maybe he could learn to like that guy after all.

"Done!" Zack bleary eyed and fatigued pushed the last signed report over to Sephiroth. He had made his second help with every bit of it, since paperwork was part of field work too.

"Sure you still want to go out in the field with me?"

"Always," Zack said, his head already on Sephiroth's desk.

A few minutes later Sephiroth finished signing the last of it.

"Let's go Zack," he said, but the lump on his desk remained inert. Sephiroth smiled and reached over to push a lock of the unruly black hair off his forehead, and then let the back of his fingers drift down Zack's angular cheek. Zack slept light as a feather in the field but put some paperwork in front of him and he could go comatose in seconds. Sephiroth coiled up his middle finger and flicked him hard on the ear.

Zack's head jerked up, his alert and defensive demeanor morphing into confusion at the viscous smirk of his commander.

"Time to go home," Sephiroth said.

**A/N:** One of the perks of authoring fantasy is you get to make up words. Actually you have to make up words, so it's better just to learn to love it. I needed a name for a test that SOLDIER might have for screening for sufficient ego. Dasich comes from "das ich", Frued's original name for what we call ego. In German it means "the I". But my favorite is crako, this is obviously a blend of crack and mako. This type of word is called a portmanteau, something I learned about while reading that Jenova was a portmanteau of Jehova and Nova (so new-god). FF is full of them.


	16. Mother

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"Hey, welcome back. How's your leg?" Tessa dropped her eyes to Sephiroth's leather clad thigh, as if she might see something there.

"Fine. Normal, actually."

"Hey, I'm glad you came down, I've got something to show you."

"This almost never goes well," he said, frowning.

"I know, and maybe you don't want to see it. It's some information on your origin."

His face lifted. For good or ill, he did want to know. He'd always wanted to know, and while the information would almost certainly be bad it was better than wondering. He followed her into her office. They took the same two chairs they had a two weeks before. But now her office was full of misshapen stained cardboard boxes.

"A cleaning crew brought a bunch of crap from the lab in Nibelheim. It's all a jumble, I'm sure Hojo had the same record keeping practice there as he did here."

"Stuff spread all over the place?"

"Exactly. I don't have it all sorted out yet, but this," she opened a file containing a personnel sheet, the picture of a young woman smiling in the upper right, "is your mother."

"My mother?" Sephiroth took the folder gently, and ran his fingertips over the surface of the photo. He was suddenly and irrationally supremely happy. He had been fearing in his heart that he had come out of a tube. Her lips, and the shape of her nose, they looked like his. He read the name underneath, 'Dr. Lucrecia Crescent'. Not Jenova, as he had once been told. A name that sounded suspiciously like a project rather than a person.

"Are you sure? How do you know?" he asked.

"I pieced together some records that were clearly from your infancy, along with some personnel files that indicated Dr. Crescent was pregnant about the right time, so I pulled her genetic profile from the system and ran it against yours, and it's a parent-child match. This _is_ your mother."

"What happened to her?"

"The official records say she committed suicide by throwing herself into the Lifestream."

Sephiroth was quiet for a long moment.

"Because of me."

"Sephiroth, look at me."

He did so, with a pained look in his eyes. "I would, but I can't actually see you through those damned contacts," he said.

"Ugh! Will you forget about the contacts for once? I swear, you are the most aggravatingly obsessive man. Listen to me, none of this is your fault. I don't care how dark and horrible your past is, none of it is your fault."

He was silent again.

"There's more dark and horrible, isn't there?" he asked.

"Well, probably." She winced. "Lucrecia Crescent was married to Hojo."

Sephiroth's vision turned red, then bright green. He stood up suddenly, knocking his chair backwards. This just couldn't be; there was nothing she could have said that would have been worse.

"Hojo was my father? Hojo?!"

"Easy General," she said, also standing. "Marriage does not always equal parentage where the father is concerned."

"You have another candidate? Tell me you have another candidate."

"As a matter of fact I do. There are some electronic journal records that your mother kept. They're in pretty bad shape and I've got a computer tech friend trying to piece them together. But she keeps going on about someone named Vincent, how she loves him and is trying to save him from something. I think your mother had a lover around the time you were born. And..." she reached for another folder, "There was a Turk named Vincent Valentine assigned to the lab during that time. Take a look at him."

She opened another folder with a personnel file, this time a photo of a dark haired attractive man, his lean face sporting a sharp jaw line and strong chin. Six foot, 175 lbs. Bigger than Hojo. Closer to Sephiroth's size.

"He disappeared around the same time. The personnel file is still open, not logging him as dead or missing or even inactive, but he's certainly not here now.

Now there is no genetic code logged for Hojo; the master of genetic manipulation managed to keep his own code out of the system. So I can't compare parentage for him. But Valentine's should be somewhere, it's just that the Turks bogart all Turk information. I can't get access to any details on him. I thought I might be able to Reno to nick the file for me, I heard he'll do that kind of thing. But he wanted to trade."

She frowned, clearly a little disturbed.

"You don't want to be trading with Reno."

"Actually I got the impression he would prefer to trade with you."

"Ugh, I don't think I want to be trading with Reno either."

"Are you sure?" She teased, "an already mako-exposed male, he'd be a safe partner choice for you."

For a moment she thought she had stepped over the line, but then he gave a small smile.

"I have a better idea" he said.

"You can get the access file? His genetic sequence data should be in there."

"I'm going to try. A Turk or Hojo then? I'm going to root for the Turk."

"Me too," she said.

Ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"What do you mean he's left, it's barely five. Doesn't he work… all the time?" Sephiroth was leaning his imposing bulk over Tseng's secretary, Derek, trying to squeeze the man case he was lying to him. It did no good, however. Derek's face didn't so much as twitch.

"He's left for the day," he simply repeated. Sephiroth gave him his best scowl, even conjured some mental imagery of hanging the secretary upside down and peeling skin from him with Masamune (just in case there was such a thing as mind reading). Nothing. He turned to leave, and on his way out an office chair shot out of a cubical, stopping abruptly as it's leading wheel hit one of his boots. The occupant grinned up at him.

"Hey General!"

Sephiroth growled. This Turk Reno clearly had no sense of self preservation. The redhead jumped up and sent his chair back into his cube with a shove from his foot.

"You want to take a walk with me," Reno declared, dipping his shoulder in the direction Sephiroth was already heading and taking a step. Normally this caused people to continue on their path. Normally, it the person was normal, Reno reminded himself. Sephiroth didn't budge. Reno tried the motion again, no response. Fine, he thought, two could play at that game. Reno slouched his lean frame against a cube wall and held the General's stare. That in itself wasn't an easy thing to do, but as far as the waiting game went he knew he could stand here all night; he rather enjoyed wasting time. But he was pretty sure Sephiroth didn't have the patience for it.

He was right. Sephiroth really didn't care to linger in Turk HQ simply to spite Reno's desires, and with a disgusted groan he strode off at a fast pace towards the elevator, Reno at his heels. Since he couldn't control the elevator doors, say invoke them into a Reno crushing burst of motion, Reno stepped in with him, and pushed a button for a floor far short of where Sephiroth was heading. He pointedly ignored Reno, but could feel him staring at the side of his head.

"What do you want, Reno?" Sephiroth asked, still not looking at him.

"I've got something for you," Reno waited until Sephiroth looked his way, then put a deliberately serious look on his face, laid his finger on his lips, then pointed first to one than the other corner of the elevator. Bugs? Sephiroth wondered. Actually he wasn't surprised; he just never paid attention before. Leave it to the Turk to know, though.

The doors opened and Reno stepped into their path, clearly meaning not to let them close. He beckoned to Sephiroth, again with the serious look on his face. Now the General was curious because he had never seen Reno look serious about anything. He stepped through and let himself be guided along a generic looking administrative hallway, where they stopped in the middle.

"No coverage here," the Turk said waving a hand that had magically produced cigarette. 'Coverage' in Reno's book obviously also included smoke detectors.

Sephiroth looked at him expectantly.

"You're looking for Tseng?" Reno asked

"I want something of him, yes."

"I know where he is."

"And you're going to tell me?"

Reno paused. Sephiroth decided he didn't look nervous, more… thoughtful. Yet another state Sephiroth had assumed him incapable of.

"Every month or so he leaves early. Goes through some serious measures to cover his tracks, so of course, I had to know what he was up to. There's some stuff he's dealing with."

Reno paused again, and Sephiroth realized this was hard for the Turk. He wasn't sure whether it was speaking seriously or just the act of speaking to him, but either way he took a small evil pleasure in it.

"Anyway I can't help. None of us can. Turks take care of Turks, you know? But Tseng's got this whole "me boss, you underling" thing going on. Some sort of professional code won't let him cross that line. But you, you command your own division; he'd consider you on the same level… "

"You want _me_ to talk to him?" Sephiroth could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"I thought you might. Seeing as how you two seem to be getting pretty tight…"

"We are not- ." Sephiroth sighed and rubbed his forehead, an exasperated gesture usually only Zack could draw out of him. "Where is he?"

cccccccccccccccccccccccc

"Look at me, yo." Reno twirled in a circle in Rude's cubicle. "You are doing my paperwork for _nuthin'_. Bad trade, partner."

Rude looked at him, clearly annoyed. "He didn't hit you? He didn't give you one of those hurts-for-the-next-three-days finger pokes into some nerve bundle?"

"Nope."

"He didn't light your hair on fire?"

Reno quickly grabbed the base of his ponytail and whipped it around in front of himself to check. The last time the General had lit only the very tip and it smoldered for some time before Reno noticed. After that he had put him on the list of people not to let get behind him, even in a meeting. He smiled happily.

"Nope!"

"You're a bastard," Rude said. "But I'm still glad I'm not the one who had to ask. He's going to talk to Tseng?"

"I think so, but you never can tell with that psychopath."

Reno threw himself carelessly into the cubicle's guest chair, which all but exploded under him, bits of chair leg skittering across the floor leaving Reno on his butt, one armrest still grasped in his hand, and a stunned expression on his face.

Rude chortled, which for any other person equated to a gut wrenching outburst.

"Sorry," he said, "should have warned you about that chair."


	17. An Evil Word

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

Sephiroth pulled up in front of one of the dirtiest, most run-down buildings he had ever seen in his life and killed the engine. He was driving a rather expensive sports car which he owned but felt no propriety over. ShinRa had given it to him when he was promoted, and he almost never used it. Somebody from the motor pool drove it around and did maintenance every month, kept it full of petrol, that kind of thing. He supposed he should let Zack know he had it. The young man would certainly appreciate borrowing it from time to time but frankly the combination of Zack's adrenaline junkie nature and high speed automobile sounded disastrous.

He got out and looked around the street. Gaia, he hated coming down to the lower plate. His vehicle was glaringly out of place and certainly would not be here when he returned. What he needed was a sentinel. Sephiroth noticed a group of about five rough looking thugs in the mouth of the nearby ally, eyeing him. Any one of those would do.

He approached the group, who righted their slouching postures against the buildings and assumed a more aggressive appearance.

"Hey freak," one of them called, "escape from an S&M show?"

They all laughed and several made quick hand touches to each other. Sephiroth didn't understand the exact meaning of this exchange of touch to one another, but he didn't much care. He waited. A volunteer swaggered forward; he knew one would.

"Hey, I think you want to give us your wallet," the young man said, producing a knife with maybe a five inch blade. Sephiroth waited.

"Did you hear me, freak?" the thug yelled, now clearly agitated. The rest of the group was getting agitated as well. The man with the knife lunged toward Sephiroth, but he hit nothing but air. Sephiroth was already beside him, the man's knife hand locked under his steely fingers. He twisted and the guy's wrist snapped like dry kindling. He brought the arm up and around and tore the tendons loose at the shoulder. He had to wait for what felt like quite a long time before the others responded. He dropped the first two as soon as they came into range with a couple of well aimed body kicks that crumpled them into small piles. He always forgot how fragile these people were.

The others hesitated, and he took the time to look down at the one he still held. The man's eyes were wide with fear and a trail of saliva was running from the corner of his mouth. Right, he had been screaming, although Sephiroth barely registered it. Screaming was not useful battle information. Sephiroth reached across the man's face, hooked his fingers around the far corner of the jaw, and twisted his head until he heard the neck snap twice. His speed had been sufficient; he was sure the spinal cord would have gone with it. He moved his grip to the man's collar, letting the head loll off at an unnatural angle. The remaining two thugs took one last look and ran back into the alley.

Sephiroth dragged his volunteer into the road, and dumped him in a pile in front of his driver's side door. Nothing kept people away like a dead body. The more grotesque the better, although he didn't want to suffer the mess associated with disembowelment. Instead he pushed the broken body parts around with his foot, until he got the head in a particularly disturbing position. He looked at his work dispassionately. It would have to do.

He walked into the bar, slotted pupils widening to compensate for the darkness inside. He had no idea what the Turk commander would be doing in a place like this, and was giving some special thought to what way he was going to kill Reno for sending him out here when he spotted him. He had been looking for the dark suit, because he had never seen Tseng in anything but. Tseng wasn't wearing it. He had on some appropriately blending ill fitting outfit on.

"Hello, Tseng," he said, taking the stool next to him in the bar.

Tseng looked over. He should have been surprised, but the dull look in his eyes had apparently spread over his entire nervous system.

"How are ya, General," he said and turned back to his drink, staring into its depths. Sephiroth wondered how drunk he was. He was most familiar with drunkenness in Soldiers, who tended to get more animated the drunker they got. But Soldiers were different, full of mako and all very young. He understood that other people might have a variety of responses, including extreme apathy. Sephiroth knew from personal experience the value of apathy, sometimes it was the only thing that kept you sane.

"What can I get you, buddy?" The bartender asked, standing across the bar from Sephiroth. Sephiroth looked at him with eyes so bright they shone even in the deliberate darkness and considered grabbing a handful of the man's hair and bouncing his head off the bar just to make him be quiet. The bartender, a lifelong expert in evaluating crazy looks, retreated.

"How'd ya fend me?" Tseng slurred. Very drunk, Sephiroth decided.

"You Turks aren't as sneaky as you think."

This produced a small smile on Tseng's face and a glimmer of his usual light returned to his eyes. Sephiroth noticed a pair of men in the corner looking his way, tilting their chins towards him. One excitedly reached over and tapped a companion, who also looked at Sephiroth, eyes widening. Apparently they had recognized the Wutai war hero. Sephiroth ignored them but thought he should move out of here soon.

"You must want somethin," Tseng said.

"Yes. Information."

"Of course." Tseng's smile turned rueful. "Information, information, it's always about information in the end."

Then he did something Sephiroth could not have anticipated. He abruptly stood on his stool; arms raised and shouted "I AM THE GOD OF INFORMATION!"

Sephiroth was horrified, but most of the patrons gave one barely interested look and went back to their drinks. He wondered how to get Tseng down with the least amount of scene causing grappling, but his wondering was cut short as the stool rotated and sent Tseng off balance. Sephiroth caught the unorganized pile of arms and legs rather gracelessly and dragged Tseng from the bar.

"We're leaving," he told Tseng.

"Already? It's so early."

Sephiroth opened the passenger side and dumped Tseng inside, not waiting to see if all his limbs were clear before slamming the door. He stepped over his sentinel, who had apparently done a fine job since the car was untouched, and slid behind the wheel.

"Why is there a dead guy next to your car?" Tseng asked. Sephiroth ignored him. It was going to be along half hour drive back home.

"I have this same car," Tseng announced looking around the vehicle. "Do you have some water? I'll need it."

Sephiroth reached back and grabbed one of the two bottles the maintenance crew always left in the back seat pocket. Tseng took the water gratefully.

"Thanks. I suppose food would be too much to ask?"

Sephiroth dipped into his coat pocket and threw a Tessa bar at Tseng. He opened it and took a bite.

"Hey, this is good," he said.

Sephiroth was encouraged to see that he appeared to be sobering a bit, or at least collected his wits some.

"Why were you doing drinking in there?" he asked.

"Well, it's one of the few places you can drink in peace without the watchful eye of ShinRa. Or at least so I thought." Tseng frowned.

"Are you an alcoholic?" Sephiroth asked.

"No, or at least I don't think so. I only do this about once a month."

"So what's going on?"

Tseng appeared not to notice the oddness of this question coming from Sephiroth. Sephiroth was himself surprised that he even knew the verbiage for this type of exchange. But after contemplating he decided he should be quite familiar with it; Zack had been subjecting him to this type of interrogation for years.

Tseng turned to him and smiled a little, placed a finger on his lips, then pointed at two spots inside the vehicle. Bugs in his car? Sephiroth hated all this cloak and dagger Turk shit. He hated sleazy bars. He hated the slums. He hated the idea of crumbs on his car seat. But at least he was initiated into this Turk-bug routine. "Tell me where to go," he said with a resigned sigh.

Tseng directed him to small park near the highway at the edge of the plate. Tseng stumbled getting out of the car. How un-Turk like, he thought, and frowned down at his misbehaving feet. They took a seat on a bench under a fake tree and surrounded by fake grass, as the contamination from the reactor kept plant life growing in Midgar. In the fading light the illusion was almost believable.

"You ever worry about the Planet, General? Worry about what's happening to it?"

"No."

"Really? A couple of months ago I would have believed that of you. Because I believed you loved nothing. A man who loves nothing has no hope or interest in the future. But be honest General, if we suffered some sort of catastrophic collapse, and everything you've worked for, everything you love were destroyed, would you not care? Your program? You're men?"

A cloud passed over Sephiroth's eyes, not unnoticed by Tseng.

"I have a son," Tseng said. "I keep him hidden on the lower plate, because there's nothing ShinRa would like better than to find something to get their grubby hands on and hang over me. "

Sephiroth listened in surprised silence. This type of ShinRa bashing was the last thing he ever expected to hear from Tseng.

"I see him once a month. His mother doesn't care much for me, but she's accepting of the support. I hide myself from them in a way too, they don't know what I do, who I work for. I tell myself it's for their safety, that the fewer people know the better, but I wonder if it isn't out of shame. I worry about him having a world that's worth living in. I worry about what role I'm playing to shape that world."

"So, what, are you thinking of running off and joining Avalanche?"

Tseng laughed. "Avalanche are fools. They don't have to take down ShinRa. It'll crumble under its own weight soon enough. It's cracking already. And if it falls in a sudden heap the effect will be almost as bad as if they continued to poison the Planet. New power sources cannot be brought on line fast enough to keep hospitals and schools open, fuel prices will skyrocket, kicking off an upward spiral of the price index, companies will close, we'll suffer widespread economic collapse and our overbloated, mako-dependant population will starve."

He looked at Sephiroth, his bloodshot eyes serious.

"When the time comes, there will be a chance, before the collapse, to grab hold of the situation and maybe turn to a better direction. But not if the two forces of ShinRa battle one another. We would have to work together."

"You're talking about a coup," Sephiroth said.

"It's kind of an evil word, isn't it?"

"You're drunk, Tseng."

"So I am. Mind giving me a lift home?"

They rose and headed back to the car.

"Oh, Sephiroth, there was something you wanted."

"Just a file on an old, dead Turk. Vincent Valentine."

"Ah, the lab was asking for that. It's policy not to give out Turk files. I didn't know it was for you."

"That would have changed the result?"

"Indeed it would have. Come by tomorrow and I'll pull it for you. Just... not too early," Tseng said, rubbing the side of his head.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth arrived at Tseng's office at 10:00. This time he had actually called ahead, and thought he received some sort of approving look from the secretary Derek, although what part of that immobile face he might have used to detect this he couldn't fathom.

Tseng stood up when he came in, pulled a chair over to join his own and adjusted the angle of his enormous monitor. He showed no sign of embarrassment or recognition of the events of the previous night. In reality his nerves were on fire knowing he had exposed all his cards to Sephiroth, and not knowing if he could trust him. Only his stringent training allowed him to keep up the implacable facade.

"Before we start, which of my people sicked you on me yesterday?"

Sephiroth smiled a little, there was no way once the man's head cleared that he was not going to figure out a Turk was involved in finding him out.

"Reno," he said, amused to see the corner of Tseng's eye twitch. "I imagine he knows everything, about your personal business I mean. And also," he paused, and it actually hurt him to say the next part, "I think he is genuinely concerned about you."

Tseng sighed.

"You know, you might open up to some of your Turks. I hear it does wonders for binding people to you."

Tseng almost laughed. Who knew the General had a sense of humor?

"This," he said, changing the subject by punching a button on his keyboard, "Is Vincent Valentine's file."

They sat in front of the screen, Sephiroth leaning in with interest. He saw the photo again of the Turk Valentine, staring out from the screen with an intent fire in his brown eyes.

"Take a look at his performance stats, this guy was good, very good. There's no way he should have disappeared without an investigation, but the file just stops about 25 years ago. Somebody covered up what happened to him."

Tseng looked at Valentine's photo again, and then looked over at Sephiroth.

"How old are you?" he asked. He actually wasn't sure; his mind always wanted to stick with the impression that the General was in his thirties because he'd been commanding Soldiers for almost ten years, but he seemed to recall he was younger than that.

"Twenty-five."

"Are you looking at him for your father?"

"Maybe."

"Well, there's something mysterious about your birth, there's nothing in your records about it, or your parents, or your early life that I've been able to find. I've looked."

Sephiroth raised his eyebrows at him, and Tseng shrugged as if to say 'what do you expect? I am a Turk.'

"We've found some records recently," Sephiroth said, "Kept on paper. Te... Dr. Romera received them from the Nibelheim lab,"

Now it was Tseng's turn for an eyebrow raise.

"We'd like to run a genetic comparison to Valentine," Sephiroth said.

"I'll release the file for your password and also to the lab so Dr. Romera can pull it up from there. Good luck, I'd be kind of curious to know what happened to this guy."

"I'll let you know if we find anything about that," Sephiroth turned to leave. "And Tseng?"

Tseng looked up, tensing at the change of the feel in the room.

"How would one know, exactly, when the time is right?"

Tseng let his face relax, a hint of a smile finally creeping in. "You're good at this already. You'll know. You'll be asked to do something you cannot."

Sephiroth nodded. "You have time for lunch this week? You choose the spot."

**A/N: ** I'd like to take a moment to mention how reviewers, even if they aren't writing something that's overtly critical, have helped this story. It's a very cool phenomenon of this format that I'm discovering. Sometimes the barest mention of something has caused me to think about a character more fully, or add something that results in depth or interest. This plot line with Tseng is one example of that. Somebody very early on (Corncob, I think) mentioned how they would like to see Tseng and Sephiroth be friends. At the time I had zero plans to use Tseng, but I read the comment and my brain (over which I have little control) chewed on it until I realized that they should have some sort of interaction with each other owing to the similarities of their positions. Will they be friends? I don't know. I don't control that part either.


	18. Revelations

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

A couple days later Sephiroth was back in the lab. He had viewed the files on Valentine and seen his timing regarding Nibelheim was either three months too early or three months too late to have sired him, given the birthdate he now had from Tessa. So it was Hojo then. He kept his face neutral as he knocked on Tessa's door. She looked up from her work and beamed at him.

"Match," she said.

Sephiroth shook his head, confused.

"For you and Valentine. He's definitely your genetic father."

"But I looked at his records; he wasn't assigned at Nibelheim at the right time."

"I noticed that too, although I disregarded it. People are often where they're not supposed to be where sex is concerned, and working hard to cover it up. More puzzling though are Dr. Crescent's log entries; she always indicates the baby was Hojo's. Either she was mistaken or lied in her logs."

"How could she be mistaken? Confused, maybe, but convinced it was one man when she'd been with two?"

"Are you familiar with the drug Moica?"

Sephiroth shook his head.

"Really? All that time spent in Wutai and you never heard of it?"

"Wutains didn't actually talk to me much."

"It's extracted from a plant but easily synthesizable in the lab. If taken early enough it appears to suspend the pregnancy up to several months. In Wutai, where pregnancy out of wedlock is a stigmatized disgrace, a woman would take it to delay her unplanned pregnancy long enough to secure a husband and pass the baby off as his. Between the time that Valentine left and she married Hojo Dr. Crescent was preoccupied with the idea that she might be pregnant, then later seemed to decide she was not."

"So you think my mother took this stuff after Valentine impregnated and abandoned her?"

"Maybe. It might explain why such she would marry that crazy bastard Hojo. On the other hand, maybe it was given to her."

"By Hojo? Why?"

"If you were Hojo and wanted a baby to make a supersoldier out of, whose genes would you want to start with as raw material, your own or Vincent Valentines?"

"I'd take the Turk. But how would he know she was pregnant?"

"He was making his people submit urine samples ever week, supposedly for 'drug testing'. That's far too frequent for ShinRa policy; I suspect he was exposing them to something and monitoring the results. But he could have easily known her condition."

"Then Valentine returned..."

"And Valentine disappeared."

They were both silent for a long while, just thinking.

"I wonder if he ever knew," Sephiroth said at last.

"Well, _we'll_ probably never know. The lives of humans are mysterious." She stretched where she sat, flipped her shoes off and hooked her toes on the side of Sephiroth's chair. He could almost touch them with the outside of his thigh. He warmed to her gesture, the only other person who had ever shown such a level of comfort with him was Zack.

"We'll never know all the things they did," she mused, "their hopes and fears, joys or regrets. Good thing, maybe. We need our energy to concentrate on the living around us."

Sephiroth liked that thought. For himself he knew he always did better concentrating on the present.

"What about the other genes, the dominant odd ones?" he asked.

"Oh, well they comprise about ten percent, and I still don't know what they are. My best guess so far is they are mutated human genes, but the odds of coming up with viable mutations are so slim I'm not sure how they could be made in the laboratory. I haven't seen anything in Hojo's data that indicates he could do that. They're definitely not mammalian. And it's not like you've got any non-mamalian parts anyway, scales or wings or something."

Sephiroth stared at her.

"Sephiroth?"

He stood up and one by one lowered the blinds he had convinced her to get over her windows. Then he shrugged off his coat and laid it across the back of the chair. He had a black T-shirt on today, rather than the strapped leather device she often saw him in (and someday would ask what that was). He crossed his arms and reached down to his waist and pulled the shirt up over his head, his broad latimus dorsi muscles flexing and forming a perfect triangle out of his torso as his arms raised. Tessa scrutinized his skin, looking for something that might resemble scales or other noteworthy items, but she couldn't see anything. Other than he was fantastically well developed and virtually flawless. Then slowly, like a shadow lengthening at sunset, a dark shape emerged behind his right shoulder. She looked in alarm and then fascination as it unrolled itself along the ceiling, tip reaching out past the corner and dipping down the top of the wall. She looked into his green eyes.

"Oh," she said finally. "Only one?"

He looked back in disbelief. Is that all she really had to say about the thing?

"Because if you had two," she said, "You could flap them and fly around, which might be handy. But one, well, that's just... kind of ridiculous."

Her face had an apologetic and expectant look and finally he laughed a little.

"Only one," he said. And it was ridiculous. He had been thinking of the thing as monstrous all this time, but that was hard to do now that someone else put it in perspective. She stood and rubbed one hand along his bare shoulder, then reached up and followed the expanse of the large black wing to its tip.

"You could use it as an umbrella," she said, laughing, "or maybe a blanket."

"I did actually, once. Used it as a blanket. We got caught in a snowstorm on a recon mission, Zack was injured and freezing. I wrapped him up in it. He's the only one who knows."

"Hojo didn't know, did he?"

"No." Sephiroth smiled to himself. It was one of the very few small triumphs of his youth.

"Where does it go? It's enormous," she said.

"I don't know," he said, and caused it to curl up and disappear. It looked to Tess like it sucked itself right back into his body, but there was no mark of its retreat. She ran her hand over his smooth skin, feeling nothing but normal musculature under it. She continued to stroke his back absently as she thought, and Sephiroth closed his eyes to better concentrate on the sensation. Too soon however she remembered herself and returned the wandering hand to her side, where it seemed to move restlessly. She stuck it in her lab coat pocket.

"Anything else you want to show me that I might not know about?"

"I don't think so. Strange eyes, metallic hair, launching fire and lighting attacks without materia, accelerated healing and mako uptake, one wing. And green jism."

"Right. OK, maybe I'll look at avian genes next." She allowed herself a longer look as he busied himself putting his shirt back on. She wondered if she should add utter lack of body fat to his list.

cccccccccccccccccc

"These are missing sections, you didn't fill out your log, and your expense values are off." Sephiroth frowned at the report. "Who taught you how to add, Zack?"

This had been going on all afternoon, Sephiroth finding nothing but fault with Zack's work. And this was after a pretty rough morning the training hall doing hand to hand practice. Zack had bruises all over his body from hitting the floor. The one under his left butt cheek was particularly bothering him.

"Seph, you're driving me crazy. You're crabby as hell. Why don't you go down to the lab?"

"What?"

"You're always happier when you come back from the lab." Zack stopped and thought about what he had just said. "Hey, that's funny. It used to be the other way around."

Sephiroth didn't respond.

"You know, check up on some of projects, eat some Tessa bars. See Tessa." Zack cast a sideways glance at his friend. He knew Sephiroth had said he was avoiding all romantic pursuits, and claimed he was just friendly with the lady doc. But that hadn't stopped him from going out of his way to hang out with her.

Sephiroth drummed his fingers on his desk.

"She's got some new flavors down there, this chocolate mint thing, it's like a desert." Zack watched him hopefully. He knew the General had a weakness for chocolate, but he had to pretend he didn't know because Sephiroth hated looking he had a weakness for anything, even something as benign as chocolate.

"Fix these." Sephiroth tossed the reports back to his Second and strolled out the door, leaving a relieved Zack in his wake.

cccccccccccccccccccc

"I swear you're putting drugs in these things," Sephiroth had one of the chocolate mint Tessa Bars in his hand as he walked into Lab 2. Tessa had her nose in a microscope.

"General, I assure you I'm not," she said, not looking up.

"Then why won't you give anyone the recipe?"

"Ha, how would I attract the steady flow of those Soldiers I'm so fond of if I did that?"

"I don't think that's why they come down here," he said.

Finally she looked up at him with a mock scowl on her face, and noticed he was eating one as they talked.

"Are you eating in my lab?!"

Sephiroth quickly shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

"Well now," she said, "Going to take you awhile to chew that down. Even you can't swallow those things whole. I can yell at you with impunity and you won't be able to do anything about it."

Sephiroth tried to mumble a reply, but something snapped on the device that was whirring away on the bench and a small vial of fluid broke free, flinging its contents onto the side of Tessa's head and neck.

"Oh crap!" Tessa dove for the emergency shower in the corner of the room and pulled the chain. Sephiroth did in fact swallow his whole mouthful and followed her.

"Tess, are you alright?" he put his hands on her shoulders, the water streaming down the inside of his sleeves.

"Yeah, it's fine; just need to rinse off the reagent. Stupid centrifuge, can you turn that thing off?"

Sephiroth reached over, grabbed the machine's cord, and yanked the plug free from the socket. When he looked back he saw Tessa was removing and discarding her contacts. They would be goners- once a contact lens was potentially contaminated with a chemical it had to be thrown out. He hoped she didn't have spares. His earlier efforts to get her to stop wearing them on the basis laboratory safety met with something like 'my lab, my rules.' Admittedly he just wanted to get a look at her unadulterated eyes, but he had also been in the right.

She reached back and turned off the shower, but continued to look at the floor, her orange hair dripping in streams around her face.

"Tess?" he reached forward and put one hand on her cheek. Was she crying?

"Tess, look at me."

She resisted, and he applied a little pressure under her chin. Her head lifted, eyes shut.

"Look at me," he repeated more sternly.

She opened her eyes and he froze. Bright, mako enhanced aqua irises looked back at him. As bright at any one of his soldiers. Her level must be high. He ran his thumb gently along her jaw line.

"How did this happen?" he asked softly.

"Accident. Fell into a mako spring as a toddler. I was sick for a year. My levels are stable now, though."

"How high?"

"210."

He stared at her for a long time.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

She tried to look away from him, but he put both hands on her face and forced her to face him. She knew what this meant to him, to find a woman who was already mako enhanced, but she hadn't told him. Because she didn't want him. She didn't want him. Could he blame her, after all? What was he to her? A laboratory curiosity. A difficult and violent bastard with few friends and plentiful nightmares. But if this was his only chance to see her, see her for real, he was going to drink every moment of it whether she liked it or not.

"I..." she swallowed, "I didn't want to have your interest just for the mako in my body. I wanted... more."

Sephiroth smiled as things slowly became clear to him. He slid his hands down to her waist and picked her up, forcing her to put her hands on his shoulders for balance. He swung her in a single graceful circle, her face opening in wonder at his easy strength.

"You needn't have worried," he said, "It just means I can quit fighting this battle I was losing anyway." He bent down and covered her mouth with his, and she let her arms curl around his neck as she returned his kiss.

**A/N: **This scene is **continued **in another oneshot fanfic by the name of "First Night". This is an experiment of breaking out the sexually explicit material, to see how that works, to see if people make the jump to read that. But you don't have to read it, you can continue on with One Stroke without confusion.


	19. Coincidences

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: **Regarding the experiment of breaking out part of this story and posting it elsewhere, the hit count on the extracted scene was about 25 percent fewer than the hit count on Chapter 18 here, so it looks like some people went over there to read and some did not, which I count as a success.

"Sorry sir, I um... don't have my weekly finished." Zack looked sheepishly at his commander. He actually had no good excuse for not having his report done; he had taken advantage of his boss's obvious absence yesterday afternoon and goofed off playing a war game over the network with some of his guys even though he hadn't started his report and he knew it was due every Friday morning.

"And I accidentally double scheduled one of my mandatory committee meetings with your mission review, so I have miss one or the other. Oh, and IT suspended my network privileges for, um, abuses. And I accidentally put rat poison in your coffee. Seph, are you even listening?"

Normally Sephiroth would have chewed him out for any one of these things, but he stood rather placidly with his coffee, looking out his window.

"I got it," he said, "Get your report in by Monday AM, go to the committee meeting and get someone to give you notes from the mission review, and tell IT that I said that war game you play is tactical training. Oh, and quit putting rat poison in my coffee."

He smiled at Zack and went back to looking out the window.

Zack crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Sephiroth curiously.

"My extensive experience in Sephiroth behavior tells me this is a mood never seen before. What is this? You are _way_ happy."

Sephiroth ignored him, continuing to smile slightly out the window. A slow understanding crept over Zack's face.

"You got laid last night," he said.

Sephiroth turned his head to Zack, mouth agape.

"That's it, isn't it? You got laid. Well glory to the Planet, about fucking time! It was Tess, right? I knew it; you went down there and never came back."

"Zack! Y- " Sephiroth stammered in a loss for words. "Out!"

But Zack could tell he actually had Sephiroth flustered. This almost never happened and it was too good for him to let go of. "Was she noisy? How many times did you do it? Are you going to see her again tonight?"

Almost too late he noticed the bright spark arcing between the fingers of Sephiroth's left hand. Zack darted out the door, leapt over Sylvia's desk as an electric blaze raced after him. He jogged sideways just in time to avoid the thing as it hit the wall, leaving a sizeable scorch mark and causing the florescent light above it to wink out.

"Missed me!" Zack called from a safe distance, full of obvious glee.

Sephiroth sat down, shaking his head, reminding himself that no pleasure went unpunished in this world.

After a few minutes of quiet, Sylvia leaned just far enough into the doorway to glimpse her boss; he appeared to be working as normal, nothing new poised to fly out of the door. She pulled a maintenance request from a drawer, wrote in their location, then checked 'wall' and 'light fixture'. Under type of damage her choices were 'water', 'mechanical', and 'fire'. It didn't really look like fire this time. In the blank for 'other' she wrote 'electricity'. The last section was the most entertaining. 'Cause for Damage' . Half of the choices had been added due to the Soldier Division. In addition to the more ordinary acts of nature were 'training accident', 'improper use of tools/weaponry' and the last choice, the one she checked: "General Sephiroth".

Tessa looked at her watch. 3:30. Still two and a half hours left of a day that seemed to have no end. Sephiroth had convinced her to forego the colored contacts and it had caused quite a commotion. It was just as well, those were the last pair of the old batch, and the new ones didn't really cover the same way and looked rather strange. Not that the old ones didn't look a little strange, or that her own eyes weren't strange to begin with. But as if her new appearance didn't provide enough entertainment to her own staff, the first Soldier had been down at 9 am for an appointment and given her the third degree about her levels, the accident in her childhood, what she was eating, how did certain things make her feel...probably half out of satisfaction of reversing their roles. He must have told all his fellows because since then it had been a steady stream of Soldiers coming down to get a look at her. They examined her eyes with an eerie intensity. She felt like a zoo animal.

She was thinking that about the only one she hadn't seen was Zack Fair when he strolled into her office, knocking but not stopping to wait for an invitation.

"OK, I guess you're next," she said.

He sat down opposite her and leaned on his elbows half way across the desk to get his face closer to hers. She rolled her eyes up, then all the way around, having learned throughout the day that the Soldier who come to investigate wouldn't leave until he saw every angle of them.

"Sure enough," Zack said. She wondered what that was supposed to mean, several of them had made similar comments.

"Every one of your guys has been down here," she said.

"Of course. It's a ritual. Every time a new recruit gets to the stage in his treatment where his eyes start to shine everyone comes and checks him out."

"Ah, I see, like when the new baby baboon is born all the other baboons come and look, poke, and sniff at it. "

"Exactly. You're one of us now. And it's good that they know, I mean it's not like we didn't trust you before, you've been really good to us, but its better knowing that you're, you know, the same. That you're expertise in mako problems is not an accident.

And speaking of accidents, you're at 210?" he asked.

"Yes I had an accident."

Zack nodded, still amiable but there something was sobering about his expression.

"And it's also an accident that the lady who told my General he needed a mate with level over 200 is probably the only female on Gaia that can meet that requirement, and now shares his bed?"

Tessa jerked back from Zack, a number of things flying through her head, but what her mind latched onto was the idea of 'accident'. The oddness that another accident had played a role in this sequence.

"Actually it was an accident, a lab accident that caused him to see my eyes, I hadn't wanted him to know because I knew it would affect his feelings... but that little bit of weirdness aside," she made a shoving motion with her hands, "I understand what you're insinuating, that I might be manipulating Sephiroth in some way."

"I don't mean to be offensive, or accusatory," Zack frowned, "OK, maybe a little bit, but you have to understand Sephiroth means the world to me."

"No, it's OK Zack, when I ran that test months ago I was already pretty enamored of him, and didn't trust it myself. I mean, really, a test result that says 'the only woman for the man you're infatuated with is _you_?' How absurd does that sound? I thought I was hallucinating. I ran it every different way I could think of. And most of it was computer modeling. The answer was always the same. I can't get independent confirmation because I don't want to release Sephiroth's genetic code to an outside lab. I don't even want to ship it around ShinRa; this place kind of scares me. Somebody might decide he'd be better lobotomized and kept for breeding or something."

Zack shuddered. "As far as I know Hojo was the only one into doing that sort of thing."

"Yeah, as far as we know. Anyway at the time I gave all the data to Sephiroth, and I think he's capable of evaluating it; he's picked through some pretty difficult stuff so far. But I don't know that he's looked at it. I wish he would. I don't think it's occurred to him yet, that these coincidences are strange. But it will."

"Best thing is to beat him to it," Zack said, "He likes the direct approach, just go talk to him about it, tell him to look at the damn data and make up his own mind."

"Thanks Zack."

Zack had apparently decided to put away his mistrust for the moment and return to his relaxed self.

"So you've been wearing those contacts your whole life?"

"Pretty much."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a freak, Zack. I'm the little freak who fell into the Lifestream and came out ranting equations and history and philosophy and who could speed read but who didn't know how to tie her own shoes or who her own mother was."

"Well," said Zack, "Welcome to freak central. I'm Zack Fair," he stood and shook her hand in a formal fashion, "Lieutenant Colonel and second in command of the freak Soldier army. Our leader is General Sephiroth," he made a grandiose salute to an imaginary Sephiroth, "The king of all freaks," he leaned over close to her ear and whispered, "he's the one you're sleeping with."

"Zack!" she hit him in the shoulder.

"Hey, what can you do?" he asked

"Do?" Tessa asked, suffering some mental whiplash from his abrupt change of subject.

"Yeah, can you fight?"

"No!"

"Are you fast, can you jump? Because I bet you can jump."

"I... I have no idea. I study. I read. I... I know I'm weirdly strong for a girl."

"Ha, see, you could probably beat the crap most men. Hell, at 210, maybe even some of my guys. You really do need a Soldier for a boyfriend. Come with me."

"What? Where?" She protested but he was already on her side of the desk helping her out of her lab coat.

"We're going down to the training hall. We're going to jump. It's the best. The mako will lend the strength for good start, but you need to train for height and hang time."

"Zack, I have a skirt on."

"No problem, I'll grab a pair of cadet issue fatigues for you. Cadets are scrawny; there should be something to fit you.


	20. Joy

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"OK, the goal here is joy."

"Joy?"

"Trust me," Zack said with an entirely non-trustworthy grin on his face.

Tessa stood in a pair of baggy fatigue pants and oversized T-shirt in an enormous room with a vaulted ceiling. She wondered why she hadn't come in here before, she spent so much time on Soldier health she should at least see what they did. On the wall next to them there were hash marks starting at 10 feet and going up to 35 feet. Off to the side a series of platforms were mounted. She supposed it was some sort of climbing apparatus.

"OK, you want to explode all your energy at the beginning then release like you haven't a care in the world. Like maybe you can fly."

He launched himself and landed on the twenty foot platform. Tessa stared at him with her mouth hanging open.

"Get back down here!" she yelled.

Zack hopped down lightly. "What's wrong?"

"That's twenty feet in the air!" she said, pointing.

"Yeah, I know."

"Is that typical?"

"Well, I'm particularly stellar, but yeah, that's what we do. You didn't know?"

"No!"

"But you review our stats."

"Yeah, your muscle strength and reaction times off the electrodes, but there's nothing in that data that suggests you should be able to do that. Human anatomy is not compatible with what you just did. That kind of jump in relationship to your body size is more like... a flea."

Zack frowned. So much for joy.

"Can you jump and land without touching the platform?" she asked.

"Sure." Zack popped up, curled, flipped over once while leisurely floating in the air, and landed on his feet.

"No, no, no! Now you're not just screwing with what's anatomically possible, you're breaking laws of physics! You're in the air about twice as long as you should be!"

Zack shrugged. "You analyze too much. Come here."

"You're not suggesting I can do this."

"Sure you can. We're not the only ones that do it, you know. Some of the old, secretive martial arts schools produce Soldier type jump height, hang time, even strength or speed. Although they don't have the stamina of our mako-enhanced guys."

"I thought that was some sort of urban legend," she said, frowning.

"No, they exist. They're rare. They have to start as young children and train for 10 or 20 years or some damn thing. But in Soldier, as soon one of my new recruit's level exceeds a hundred, their eyes start to shine, and I take them here. I can get them up maybe ten feet, first day. You're a 210. No sweat. Just explode, think of height, and relax to float."

"OK," she said, "explode, height, float."

Tessa scrunched up her face and jumped as hard as she could. Half a second later she was back on the ground.

"Well that's just pathetic," she said, "I'm going back to the lab."

"No, no you don't," Zack said, grabbing her arm, "You just haven't got the hang of it. It's really a mental exercise, like summoning with materia."

"I've never used materia."

"Never?"

"No."

Zack was at a loss. He'd been in the soldier program since a young teenager and had forgotten that most people didn't have classes on how to use the stuff. He had been thinking of himself as a pretty good trainer, but had never tried to train somebody that hadn't been through the Soldier cadet program. Well now it was a matter of personal pride. He was going to find some way to teach her to jump.

"OK, well, how about you get the feel for it first. Here, hold on to me,"

He put his hands around her waist and pulled her close to him, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"On three we both jump, one, two, three."

And then air rushed downward past Tessa, and it took her a moment to convince her senses it was because they were rising. At the peak she felt the unnatural slowness, had time to look into Zack's eyes and see the indigo of his irises cloud over with a venomous green, and she could feel the lifting correspond to a look on his face. Relaxation. Or maybe it was joy.

They landed lightly, and she was reminded of when she jumped from the train in Sephiroth's arms. He did this too. Probably to a greater degree than the rest. What did Zack call him, the King of the Freaks?

"OK, this time on your own, but I'm going to throw you."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, I'll catch you. Trust me."

She realized she didn't have a choice in the matter as he had already grabbed her waist.

"One, two..."

Three! she jumped and was in the air. She brought back to mind that joy look on Zack's face, and felt the float...

Zack cought her roughly and had to drop somewhat to the wooden floor with her to absorb the fall.

"Ouch," he said, "don't forget to land, please."

"Sorry."

"OK, all you this time."

She concentrated, remembering that momentary feeling, jumped...

And she floated. This time she was sure she was up there a weirdly long amount of time. She had time to look around. Then the floor was rushing towards her and she stuck her feet onto it, oddly feeling as if the floor were something flying that her legs caught rather than the other way around.

"I did it! I did it!" she yelled, grabbing onto Zack's shoulders.

He nodded and smiled encouragingly. It was only a six footer, she'd be a terrible recruit, but he reminded himself that she wasn't a recruit. She was the head of ShinRa medical research lab.

"Great, see, you're doing great! Let's jump at the same time, on three..."

And they jumped and landed, each time Zack leading a little bit more, a little higher. Now she was doing quite well, near the ten foot mark. Zack considered this might be a good method for some of his slower trainees. Then he took a few jumps just for himself, launching up to stunning heights, twisting and somersaulting in the air, eyes ablaze in green. Tessa watched him in envy, and on her next jump she rotated backwards.

But she didn't come all the way around. Zack saw her, his face changing from jump induced bliss to Sephiroth-is-going-to-kill-me alarm as he, already inverted, reached for her. But he was still on his upswing and she already down, there was no way to grab her in time.

_Oh crap, _she thought_, I'm going to land flat on my back. _ And then Zack smiled. She wondered why in the Planet he might be smiling when she found that hitting the floor was a rather soft experience full of the smell of leather and sight of silver gossamer.

"Hi," she said, looking up into a pair of bright green feline eyes.

"What are you doing Zack?" Sephiroth asked when Zack landed next to them.

Zack had heard that question from his commander hundreds of times. In colors of anger, frustration, annoyance, sarcasm, even disbelief... but never in this sort of dreamy curiosity. Probably because Sephiroth was still looking down at his catch when he said it.

"Jumping," Zack said, grinning, as if that explained everything.

Sephiroth continued to stare down at Tessa, watching as the green in her eyes shifted back to her bright aquas. He was captivated by their shade. He'd never had a Soldier with quite this color.

"Are you ready for dinner?" he asked.

"OH, planet no! Not wearing this!" She wriggled out of his arms like an errant puppy and scooped up her regular clothing. "Hey, did you see me? I jumped!"

"Yes, I saw," Sephiroth gave a look over to Zack, who avoided his gaze.

She trotted off to the restroom to change, and since the nearest ladies room was outside of the training area and down the hall Sephiroth figured he had time to take a few jumps himself. Zack watched as his general spun and rotated in the air, arms aloft and leather coat flaring out behind him, his long silver hair sweeping the air in big, beautiful arcs. He was the most graceful flyer they had, and after a few Zack joined him, both men now flipping in the air at the same time, sometimes one passing over the other, sometimes having to give a push off each other to keep from colliding, deliberately making the landing challenging for both. Then Sephiroth gave a tremendous burst form the floor and landed easily on the thirty foot platform.

"Showoff," Zack muttered, launched himself to the twenty foot and then up to the thirty where he stood with his commander. He didn't look at Sephiroth, he knew his eyes would be heavily greened up and among Soldiers it was understood that a direct green eyed stare felt aggressive to the recipient, even if it was your own teammate. The polite thing to do was avoid direct eye contact with the other man until you felt it ease off a bit. Especially if that man was your superior and had kind of a hair trigger.

"Hey, um, Seph," he said, once he could present his normal violets, "I did something."

"Besides this?"

"Yeah. But, are you mad about this? She wasn't hurt, no harm done."

"No harm done. I guess I prefer that she learn to use her talents. The world is a rough place. What was the other thing?"

"I should let Tessa talk to you first; I pretty much told her I would. But you know how I am, can't _not_ confess all my sins to you," Zack grabbed a handful of his bristly hair on the back of his head, recalling a rather bad experience where he had actually called Sephiroth at three in the morning in a state guilt induced distress after he had gossiped about the General to a drinking buddy. He never did either again.

"Spit it out, Zack."

"I harassed Tessa over the fact that she was the one who told you that you needed a woman with level over 200 to have children, and then it turns out she is that woman."

Sephiroth's eyes glinted in amusement. "Worried I'm being taken advantage of?"

"Well I figured you might not be in a state to think about it clearly. It might not occur to you."

"It did. I assume she told you I had copies of that data. I looked it over today. The interpretation looks correct to me."

"But... she's also the source of that data."

"Yes. That occurred to me as well. But there comes a point where even I have to trust somebody, if I want things for my life. And maybe it's not as coincidental as you're thinking. It's not hard to believe that my offspring would have special requirements. And if there was a woman out there with some high mako level, it would have to be due to some traumatic accident, and it's not unreasonable that such a person would dedicate their life to mako problems. Anyone who did that would naturally be drawn to ShinRa, to the Soldier program, eventually to me."

"That's one way to look at it, I guess."

"I've also considered the intelligence of the planet as a moving force. Maybe the Lifestream pushed her towards me in some way."

"What, like she's your soul mate or something?"

"Why not?"

A shadow passed over Zack's face. Sephiroth noticed it and frowned.

"What?" he asked.

But it was gone as quickly as it came, and Zack could only shake his head and shrug. "Nuthin'," he said, "Too much philosophy for me."

And with that Zack jumped away, letting himself feel the strength flowing in his body, the air rushing past him, the drifting, and the joy. What did he have to be unhappy about anyway? It was Friday night, he had an excellent evening planned doing his favorite things and taking out one of his favorite girls. So what if she wasn't his soulmate.


	21. That Slippery Slope

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

As the weeks passed Zack was plagued by that same pang he had felt on the platform with Sephiroth. He didn't understand the feeling. It would lurk at the edge of his consciousness like something half forgotten and then suddenly, when there was a lull in his activity or a moment of introspection, it would hit him like a medicine ball in the stomach. Oof. Logically he had to wonder if this wasn't some signal that he was living his life incorrectly. Maybe it was time for him to find someone special, too. He considered all the girls he normally took out, and had to dismiss them all for such a position. They were all carefully selected to tolerate his phobia of commitment. Most of them saw other men, and men he knew no less. But every time he cast his eye around at some other candidates, or even tried to imagine in his mind the perfect 'serious' girl, he always wound up in kind of a cold sweat and going out with the guys for some beers instead. He just couldn't imagine himself in the end result – a family man, wife, going home every night...

Zack shuddered as he poured himself some coffee from the Soldier lounge. What had been helping best was to keep himself busy. Zack increased the pace of his already busy social schedule, wore himself out in the gym, and even tried working extra. But normally that didn't include coming in at this hour.

Today he was actually _early_, and pleasantly surprised to discover that the lounge coffee was not always a nasty form of diluted tar. Seems he had been drinking the dregs for years. He had come in early because Sephiroth was back today, from a week of vacation of all things. The General had never taken a vacation before, although Zack had frequently pressed him to do so (if for no other reason than that's what normal people did). Sephiroth had always responded with something like 'I travel for fieldwork, why would I need to go somewhere on vacation?'. But when he learned Tessa had never been to Cosmo Canyon, one of Sephiroth's actual favorite locations, he was suddenly motivated to take her there. They'd been gone a week and Zack was eager to see Sephiroth back, not only because he hated running HQ, but because he missed him. He always missed Sephiroth when he was out, but in the last month they hadn't spent much time together. Zack knew it had to more to do with himself and his 'keep busy' mantra than the fact that Sephiroth was officially dating now. He had after all already been spending quite a bit of time with Tessa before that, so Sephiroth's routine had not changed all that much. Other than he had been eating lunch with Tseng once a week. Zack was at a loss to understand this development, either the two commanders were hatching something or had become friends, and both ideas made Zack feel a little like he was being slighted and being left out.

He frowned and pushed that thought aside. His mood was relatively good this morning and he wasn't going to let thoughts like that spoil it. He stretched then sipped the warm liquid just as Sephiroth entered the lounge, already looking for his second cup.

"Hey, Seph," he said brightly, "Miss me?"

"You're here early," Sephiroth looked curiously at Zack, sidestepping the question as he rinsed his cup. He couldn't recall ever seeing him in the office early of his own volition.

"Well, I wanted to hear about your trip. How was it?"

"Good," Sephiroth said, "Perfect. I got married."

The electric storm in Zack's brain convinced him he must have misheard.

"Say that again?"

"Tess and I got married. In Cosmo Canyon."

Zack stood for a moment, mouth slightly open. Then he stammered a few syllables before managed actual speech. "How'd you manage that?"

"I convinced her to marry me, then got it done before she could change her mind."

"Well, that's, uh, very Sephiroth of you." Zack frowned.

"You disapprove?" Sephiroth asked, now frowning also.

"No, no, Gaia no, it's not that, it's just, shit Seph, it's kind of a shock. And I guess you don't need me anymore. To take care of you, I mean." Zack grimaced slightly for not controlling better what came out of his mouth.

"Zack, you're my Second, I'll always need you to take care of me."

Zack shook his head; he knew he was being ridiculous.

"Well, hell, what am I saying, congratulations and all that," Zack forced a smile on his face, gripped his friend's hand in a vigorous handshake, and clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll see you later, OK?" and without another word left the lounge.

Sephiroth stared into his coffee cup as he poured the dark liquid in and watched it swirl in a turmoil across the bottom. That hadn't gone well at all, and he had been so looking forward to seeing Zack. But he supposed his sudden marriage was a shock, he just needed to patient with Zack and give him some time to adjust. Maybe he could take him out to lunch today.

Sephiroth walked back to his office and sat down at his computer. Tseng had sent a request for lunch, no doubt at another cafe free of ShinRa-bugs where they would continue to discuss what the new order should look like if and when they decided to make their move. He enjoyed these meetings immensely; he had never seen himself as anything but a cog in the machine, however Tseng's natural need to envision the future opened up an entirely new world of hope and speculation for him. But Zack first. He pulled up the network meeting scheduler to show Zack's calendar. He was already booked for lunch. In fact his whole week was strangely full. Maybe what he needed to do for him was talk to him about was reducing his workload. Sephiroth retrieved the invite from Tseng, and clicked on 'accept', trying to squelch an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that Zack was somehow slowly but inexorably slipping away from him.

ccccccccccccccc

"I honestly don't know what to do with him. I'm sure he's avoiding me. You haven't talked to him at all?" Sephiroth looked up at his new wife, hoping she might have some ideas.

"No, he hadn't been down to the lab, and he cancelled all our gym sessions. He won't even jump with me. Won't return my calls or email," Tessa said, pulling a broiled fish with roasted peppers and feta cheese out of the oven.

Sephiroth brooded into his Vichyssoise. In all other ways his life had never been better. He was free of Hojo, his nightmares were fewer (except that one problematic dream involving fire), he had new projects going, and he had a new beautiful wife who fed him all the time food designed for mako burning. His nights were heavenly. He'd never felt so energetic and relaxed at the same time. But damn, Zack's ability to put a damper on everything was astounding. Normally the person who helped him out with this sort of thing was Zack. The young man's statement of three days ago that Sephiroth didn't need him anymore couldn't have been more wrong.

"I think he's come in twice already this week hung over."

"That's not like him, is it? How much does a 240 mako level guy have to drink to be hungover?" she asked.

"A LOT. He likes to go out, it's happened before, a couple of times. He looks a little slow and unhappy about the fact that sound and light exist, and it clears off by noon. But he's always crawled into my office first thing and confessed." Not lately thought. Seems like everything about Zack was closed off to him. "I don't think he's eating either."

"Well whatever the problem is this abuse of himself is not going to help. He'll get out of balance and induce some additional depressive state. I can request him to come to the lab for a mako and blood nutrient level test. Maybe shoot him up with some vitamins. But if he doesn't comply you'll have to order him down there."

Sephiroth nodded, still staring disinterestedly at his own food.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"225, Zack?" Sephiroth stood at the entrance to Zack's office, lab report in his hand. Not only had Zack's mako level dropped, all of his values were off.

Zack shrugged, refusing to meet Sephiroth's eyes. "That value not good enough for you? I believe it's still number three in the program."

Zack's words and tone stung; he had never addressed his commander this way before. Any other man would be lying on the floor, bloodied and broken by now. But this was Zack, and Zack had gotten under his skin the way no other Soldier ever could. Plus, he didn't think beating him right now would accomplish his goals. What he wanted was Zack happy, healthy, and at his side. He wanted Zack back. But he was pissing Sephiroth off.

"It's not the point, Zachary. You're not taking care of yourself. Any more of this slippage and I _will_ put you on probation."

Zack continued to look down at his keyboard.

"Zack, what's going on?"

"I don't know," Zack said, finally looking at Sephiroth and putting his hands in the air. "If I knew, I'd fix it. But I don't. Maybe I just need a little space. You know over the last couple of years I constantly had to give you space, whether I wanted that or not. Sometimes weeks at a time, although I'm sure you never noticed. You think you could just for once do the same for me?"

Sephiroth shut his eyes, willing down his hurt and anger at Zack's words.

"I always noticed, Zack," he said, turned and walked out of Zack's office, his long silver hair disappearing after him down the hallway.

"Fucking hell," Zack muttered, and laid his forehead on his desk. Why did he have to go and say that? Why didn't Sephiroth yell at him? It would have been easier if he had. His heart wanted to go apologize, but something held him back. Probably the knowledge that he still had no explanation for his recent behavior. And the fact that he knew he couldn't stop it. Sephiroth would want a promise that he would shape up, and holy hell he didn't seem to be able to stop his slide down whatever slope he had gotten on.

** A/N: ** Sorry, it hurts to be beating up on Zack. But sometimes we have to go through these things.


	22. Tseng's Idea

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: Oops, I screwed up my chapter cuts here, forgetting I had something tricky planned coming up (contrary to appearance I do have a plan). So I'm posting this short bit, and then on the next post I'll have the the longer, more complicated chapter. But I probably won't post it until tomorrow because the last time I posted twice in one day I think it created some confusion. **

Tseng took a sip of his double espresso in the cafe a block from the ShinRa building. Sephiroth had a whipped cocoaccino, in line with what Tseng had observed was a sweet tooth in the General. The cafe was not bug free; it was too close to the ShinRa building. Sephiroth must have requested to see him on a non-traitorous topic.

He waited. He had learned over the recent weeks that there was a cadence, a timing to Sephiroth. He didn't talk easily, and sometimes waiting was the best. But after a certain amount of time, a nudge was needed. Nudge too soon and you got nothing. Fail to nudge and you could get nothing.

"So, there's something you wanted to talk to me about?" Tseng nudged.

"My... personal resources are somewhat thin," Sephiroth said.

Tseng had to think for a moment to interpret this.

"Well, I'm honored to be counted among them," he said smoothly. He knew the General had just gotten married, a rather quick affair in fact. It wasn't surprising if he was having trouble at home. It was surprising however that Zack Fair wasn't the one helping in the matter; everyone knew the young man was the Sephiroth's confidant. He waited, could see Sephiroth struggling, and decided it was nudge time again.

"And this is something your Second, Zack, can't help with?"

"My problem is my Second. He's melting down at a rapid rate. He's drinking heavily, he's off his feed, and his level has dropped. I can't send him out in the field like this; I'm going to have to put him on probation. And he won't talk to me, or Tessa. I had to order him down to the lab to get blood work."

"This is recent?"

"Mostly this week, but I know he's been a little off for awhile. I don't know what to do. Any other man I'd punish him and give him an ultimatum to shape up or get out. But I can't bear to lose Zack, and just having him do his duty isn't enough for me."

Tseng studied the General. Now that he had some practice reading the man's face, he could see how cracked with misery the mask was. And he could understand his feeling of loss over Zack. What Tseng would give to have a similar ally and friend in his corner.

"I have an idea, but you're not going to like it," Tseng said.

"I don't like any of this. But it's one more idea than I have."

"Zack is friendly with Reno, right?"

Sephiroth's upper lip twitched. "Maybe."

Tseng gave him a hard look.

"Yes," Sephiroth revised his answer.

"Well with any luck Reno already knows what's wrong with him, and if not he can probably get it out of him. He's actually trained to do that in addition to his natural talent for it. Let me give him a little push in Zack's direction and see what he can do."

Tseng was right, Sephiroth hated this idea. But he still had no better. He nodded. Gaia help him, and Zack, he thought.


	23. Promise Me

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: OK, remember that experiment we did awhile back where I broke out the smut into it's own document? Here's the real reason I tried that. What follows is not what I originally envisioned for this story. But seeing you guys following and enjoying this story I began to feel guilty about pouncing a big YAOI theme out of the blue. Hey, not everybody likes YAOI. So I wrote this sequence instead. Not that I'm unhappy with it, there is some very charming Zack/Sephiroth interaction here. But I don't want to waste the other stuff either. So if you would rather follow a YAOI story line, read the story Promise Me **_**instead **_**of the chapter (23) Promise Me. There's a bit of redundant material between them, and you'll be able to follow the rest of the story regardless of which path you chose. But you might interpret a few small things differently.**

**If you don't like YAOI and just want to see Reno smoke with his toes you could bop over there and then just look away before it's too late.**

Reno moved down the strip, checking Zack's usual haunts. Zack had to be drinking out, as Reno had already checked his apartment. He had picked the lock just to be sure because you couldn't rely on drunks to answer the door. Hopefully he wasn't sequestered in some other private residence with a partner in this downward spiral, but that wasn't normally how these things worked. This type of self destruction was usually a solo voyage.

He found Zack in the third place he looked, a rather quiet bar with small groups of people sunk into the shadows. An out of balance ceiling oscillated as it turned overhead, and most of the light from the place seemed to come from neon beer signs behind the bar. He should have checked this place first; it was the quietest on his list and served the cheapest booze.

"Hey, Zack." Reno slid onto a stool next to the sullen Soldier at the bar. Zack had a bottle in front of him, already half empty.

"What are you doing here, Reno?"

"A fine way to greet a friend, yo. I came to drink with you, so you wouldn't be drinking alone"

"Hmff," Zack grunted. "How did know where I was?"

Reno turned his palms up and gave Zack a look.

"Right," Zack said, "Turk. Well, pull yourself up a glass."

Reno motioned for the bartender to give him a glass, and he poured himself four fingers of the dark liquid. Zack looked pretty toasted. Reno had a good idea of the man's tolerance, and figured he must be on his second bottle already.

"So," he started in, "You going to tell me what's wrong, as if I didn't already know."

"Oh, you know, do you?"

"Yeah. Your beloved General came back from his trip married, and you went into a funk of despair."

"Is that so? It's the best thing that could happen to him. More than he ever expected out of life. Hell, I practically pushed him towards it. I'm happy for him, why the hell should I be unhappy that he got married?"

"Because you love him."

Zack gave a hollow, drunkard's laugh. "Reno, I am _not_ in love with the General."

"Not _in_ love with him. I know you don't swing that way. If you did I'd have had you long ago, I've been working on you since you were a cadet."

Zack snorted. Yeah, it had taken him awhile to get used to that aspect of Reno. It helped to remember it wasn't exactly personal. Reno just wanted to fuck everything. The Turk had a planet sized appetite that made Zack look like a blushing schoolgirl. Reno pulled out a black pack of cigarettes and started to shake one out when the bartender pointed at him and yelled.

"No cloves! Can't you read?" He pointed at a sign over the bar that did in fact say, 'No Cloves'.

"Sonofabitch," Reno muttered, put the pack away, pulled out another and flipped a cigarette out of it. This one he positioned to stick up out of the middle of his backward facing fist and held it up at the bartender, a questioning look on his face. The bartender turned his back to him.

"I mean," Reno continued, the non-clove cig now dipping precariously up and down from his lower lip as he talked, "that he's been your commander, your friend, and hell, your pet project for over two years... almost three now. Am I right?"

Zack grunted in accession.

"So he's been the center of your world for a long time. I don't know exactly how wrapped up you are in him, but I'm guessing a lot. And now you're feeling like you've been, I dunno, replaced?"

Zack stared silently into his drink.

"It's not your fault, you know. Does the guy ever tell you he appreciates you? That he cares for you at all? I know he doesn't. He's one cold son of a bitch. Even Rude, who is a really non-talkative guy, occasionally tells me he loves me. At least in some way or another. Sephiroth ever touch you, a clap on the shoulder, give you half a manly hug, anything?"

Zack thought back to that hilarious day at the lab. "He kissed me on the side of the head once."

"Huh, 'Soldier kiss', I've seen you guys do that to each other. If you tried that with Turks somebody would get shot."

"Turks are tight-asses."

"Well your General is a serious tight-ass. What precipitated this uncharacteristic display of affection?"

Zack thought, a slow process given the current fuzzy state of his mind. "I guess he saw how something he said hurt me."

"You know what Zack, just go talk to him. Find out where you stand, for good or ill. You're not going to move ahead otherwise. You can't keep drinking yourself into this stupor every night. Believe me; I've been on this road. It doesn't go anywhere. You gotta talk to him."

"I know."

"So you're going to go do it? Tomorrow? Tell me you're going to go do it tomorrow."

"I'll go do it tomorrow." Zack let his forehead hit the bar.

Reno sighed, tossed back the last of his drink, slung one of Zack's arms over his shoulder and dragged him home.

ccccccccccccccccccccc

Zack paused next to Sylvia's desk and took a few deep breaths. He felt like shit, his balance was off, his heart was racing as his body worked to process the poison he had imbibed the night before, and he was a little scared of what he was about to do. He'd been scared plenty of times heading into Sephiroth's office, but he'd always pushed himself through by focusing on the idea that he had to do whatever it was. Because it was good for Seph. Now that he was seeking something for himself it wasn't so easy. Sylvia wasn't in yet and he was grateful for that. Sephiroth, the consummate morning person, was.

He tensed his muscles, then made himself relax. He inhaled deeply. Nothing to be afraid of. Hell, Sephiroth would probably drop dead from shock just seeing him there this early. He stepped in, shut the door behind him.

Sephiroth actually stood up and came around his desk when Zack came in. He had just gotten in himself and he had never seen Zack at this hour. And the Soldier had shut the door behind him, something Zack rarely did unless he came to discuss an issue with personnel. Well, Zack had become a personnel issue.

"Seph," Zack started, but stopped and shut his eyes.

Sephiroth looked his Second over carefully. He looked like hell. Hungover certainly, gaunt, tired, and unkempt. He looked like he hadn't slept all night.

"Do you love me?" Zack's violet eyes shot up and captured Sephiroth's.

"What?" Sephiroth was wholly unprepared for such a question.

"I'm not looking for anything weird, just answer yes or no; do you love me? Because I can't actually tell. You're cold, rude, and distaining towards me. When I was the only one you gave any attention to that was enough for me, I could use that to convince myself that I meant something to you. But now, I just-."

"I love you, Zack."

Zack stared, mouth still open. He hadn't actually expected to hear it.

"Zack, is this why you've been struggling?"

Zack didn't answer; his throat had suddenly gone so dry he couldn't force any words out.

"Zachary you occupy no less of my heart for my adding another person to it. I love you as much as I ever have, and I need you as much as I ever have. As much as I did when you first came into my life, when I was drowning and didn't even know it. How could you think I don't love you?"

Sephiroth edged a little closer to him. He was close enough to reach out and touch him, if only he could… just…

Zack continued his silence, mouth opening and closing like a fish that's found itself suddenly on dry land. "Could you hug me or something?" he finally managed to spit out, feeling pathetic for the request.

Sephiroth hooked an arm around the Soldier's neck so quickly that before Zack knew what was happening his face was buried in the silver silk covering Sephiroth's shoulder. He hadn't expected to be successful in this either. He could feel Sephiroth's lips pressed against his temple, not moving, just holding him steady as Zack's breath came in barely controlled ragged gasps.

"Gaia Zack, I thought it was going to be the end of me watching you hurt yourself like this." Sephiroth shuddered.

It finally dawned on Zack that he hadn't been the only one hurting. It hadn't occurred to him because in spite of his intensive study of the man in the last few years he hadn't understand it was possible to wound Sephiroth in this way. "Seph, I'm so sorry," he said, "I didn't mean... I didn't mean it. To hurt you."

He felt Sephiroth shift his grip on him and lay his cheek into Zack's hair.

"I'll always love you, Zack. Don't ever let me tell you otherwise. Don't ever believe otherwise. Promise me."

Zack heard himself promise, but couldn't remember signaling his mouth to do so. His brain was fast turning to soup. Sephiroth pushed him out and held him by the shoulders at arm's length.

"Do you think I would say these things to any other man?" Sephiroth asked.

"No, I expect you'd just bloody anyone who approached you like this."

Sephiroth nodded. "Do you feel sufficiently special now?"

Zack nodded, looking down and suddenly feeling conspicuous and a bit silly.

"Good," Sephiroth said, "Because I think now that I know what's been wrong I can stop pussy footing around with you. You've just earned yourself two weeks of cooling your heels, Soldier. No alcohol, not even a social beer. That's an actual order. Do you think you can follow that?"

Zack winced guiltily. "Yes sir."

"If I find out you've disobeyed this in even the smallest way I'll have you arrested and thrown into some treatment program. Do you understand me?"

Zack nodded, mildly amused to think of himself on vacation in some pseudo hospital.

"And I want to know that you're eating. During these two weeks you'll have dinner with me every night. We eat in. Mako maintenance food. And you're to go immediately from here to the lab, where you will graciously submit to any tests, treatments, or injections the good lady doctor sees fit to impose on you. And don't think that's easy for me to order a man to submit to laboratory processes."

"It's alright, Seph, remember I'm not the one afraid of labs." Zack smirked, ever so slightly.

Sephiroth was relieved to see some of Zack's old cheek return. Maybe everything was going to be alright after all.

"Now get out of my office," he ordered, and sent Zack out with a shove.

Zack stood, disoriented and a little bewildered in front of Sylvia's desk. She was just arriving for the day and stared at him, frozen in the task of putting her purse away in a lower desk drawer. He grinned goofily at her. What was he supposed to be doing? Oh, yeah, the lab. As he left the secretary thought how nice it was to see him smiling, and coming out of the General's office. The two of them must have made up.

cccccccccccccccccc

"Ok, vitamin shot." Tessa was holding up a rather large syringe. "Remember, the one you said you'd break all my fingers if I tried to give it to you yesterday?"

Zack winced. "Sorry. I was just pissed at being ordered down here to have my levels checked."

"You were ordered down here this morning."

"Yeah, but it's different."

"Oh?"

Zack tried to look off to the side, but lost control of his face. It grinned widely on its own.

"He loves me," he said.

"Of course he loves you. What did you think?" She wiped a spot on his upper arm with a cotton ball in a circular motion and gently inserted the needle.

"I dunno. I'm am idiot," Zack said

"I've heard that." Tessa pulled the needle away and dabbed the site with a second cotton ball.

"And I guess I'm going to be eating dinner with you for two weeks."

"I heard that too." She stuck the cone of an ear thermometer in his ear and pushed a button.

"Oh, right, I suppose he called you while I was on the way down."

"Yes, contrary to common belief he does know how to use the phone. It's going to put a damper on your social life, I suppose. I don't like your temperature, Zack, are you still drunk?"

"Maybe a little. And my social life? Normally, yeah, I guess it would, but actually I haven't been, um, socializing much lately."

"Maybe you're outgrowing your random fornicating." She lifted one of his eyelids with her thumb to look into his eyes, and had to shake her fingers free when they became hopelessly entangled in his hair. "You need a shower, Zack, you smell like a bar."

Zack gave himself a sniff, but of course he had long since become insensible to the smell. "Well I've been trying to identify someone who might be able to be, you know, different for me. Special. But it never seems right."

"You're going about it all wrong. You can't force it. The best you can do is open your heart and see what happens. My da' always used to say love should be like falling off a roof."

"What did he mean, accidental or hazardous?"

"Both, I think. And for a guy like you maybe falling through a roof would be a better analogy. By the way, you're off for the rest of the day. I'll call Sephiroth and arrange for your absence. Get some sleep, clean up, take care of some things. Dinner is at seven. And Zack?"

He looked up from the doorway, face open.

"I missed you."

cccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Monday was a good day for Zack. He hadn't realized how terrible he had been feeling physically. He was sober, for one, and Tessa had fed him all weekend and insisted he rest. He was just coming up from the lab from levels testing. He was at 231, better, but a ways to go. It would take the rest of the week probably to get back up to his coveted 240. He made a mental note not to let his level go to hell like that again.

"Hey, Zack." His fellow First Class Soldier Marcus had caught him by the elbow as they passed in the hallway. Zack turned to see a very concerned pair of bright amber eyes scrutinizing him.

"What's up?" Zack asked.

"You, I hope," Marcus said. "Feeling better?"

Zack looked at him curiously. Marcus noticed how he'd been last week? Had everyone noticed? Probably, now that he thought about it. Soldier was a very insular community.

"Yeah," he said, "I think I'm all better now."

"Really?"

"Really. It was a personal problem. It's been resolved."

"OK," Marcus said, still looking a little doubtful, "Because a bunch of us were planning on hog tying you and dragging you down to the lab to see what was wrong with you if you weren't better today."

"Gee, I'm touched that you guys would consider doing violence to me over this." Zack said. "But seriously, I've been down to the lab already this morning, I'm doing fine, so don't waste any tears on me, OK? Wouldn't want you to use up all your Kleenex."

Marcus stared at Zack as he retreated down the hall, recalling that when he came in this morning and snatched a Kleenex the whole box had blown up on him in a terrifying white fluffy plume. Someone had very carefully loaded a small ordinance in there. The whole thing disintegrated, bits of tissue everywhere, his office was still coated with it. Bits were still stuck in his hair. That bastard Zack knew he had allergies.

"YOU!" He yelled after Zack, who disappeared with a smile and a wave behind the elevator doors on his way to a meeting. Zack grinned happily to himself. Yeah, he had been neglecting a number of things lately.


	24. Dreams and Fire

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

Fire. So much fire. He could feel the heat from it on his skin, from both sides of the street. Gaia, it felt good, the fire. It was powerful, destructive. Final. The throaty roar from superheated winds was punctuated by lively crackling as bright yellow tongues licked building walls and punched through roofs. He looked up at the clock tower, a large ornate thing with three lobes on the minute hand. It was made of brick and wouldn't burn. Pity. Masamune was in his hand, its balanced weight satisfying and thrilling as it dripped with the blood of his enemies, his true enemies, his historic enemies. They were so weak, he thought. Worms. Barely worth the time of a god to cut them down. They didn't even fight, just stood screaming while he lopped great chunks of their flesh away. That part felt particularly good. The screaming he tuned out. Screaming was not useful battle information.

Then he was inside, someplace industrial, and he was swinging and jumping between catwalks and pipes. This enemy was better. This enemy was fun. But he too succumbed, and Sephiroth held Masumune aloft momentarily. It was Zack's confused and hurt eyes that stared back at him. Inside his head he screamed and screamed, but his dream self struck Zack down without hesitation, completely ignoring his internal screams. Screaming was not useful battle information, after all. Then he walked away, without bothering to finish his opponent, the screaming still ringing inside his head.

Sephiroth bolted awake, his heart racing in his chest. That damn dream again. Always the same. And why Zack? When it had started- was it a year ago, or two? - he had rationalized it as resentment towards the young man for disrupting his peace of mind, for intruding into his world. But did he now harbor some unknown hatred for him that he had to keep hewing him down in the night?

He shook his head in a physical attempt to dislodge his thoughts. Best thing to do was to start as soon as possible to put the dream out of his mind. As it was it normally took several hours for the vivid images to completely clear. During that time he couldn't bear to look at Zack, and if he couldn't avoid him during the day he would unavoidably have to order the young man away from him. And then the dream would win its little victory, making itself a come true in a small way as the hurt in Zack's eyes echoed that in the dream. Silently he slid out of bed, readied himself for his day and slipped out the door.

ccccccccccc

"Leave me alone today, Zackary." Sephiroth knew precisely the tone to cause this to happen, anything less severe and Zack would persist.

"No," Zack said, and shut Sephiroth's office door behind him.

Sephiroth looked at him in mild surprise, though as he did he saw the diagonal wound split open from Zack's shoulder to hip, ends of severed ribs and muscle exposed, a hint of pink lung and the bulging intestines. He felt the weight of Masamune in his right hand accompanied by the thrill always associated with using that sword, of making a kill with that sword. He turned away, unable to look any longer.

"You recently made me promise not to let you tell me you didn't love me. And that's what you're doing every time you push me away without explaining yourself. So I'm asking you to explain yourself. Seph, could you at least look at me?"

Sepiroth tried again, but this time was faced with the image of Zack crumpled, bleeding, dying. He turned his head away so suddenly that Zack actually looked down at himself wondering if something was wrong.

"I cannot. Look at you right now. That's why I send you away. It's just... the damn dream."

"What dream?"

Sephiroth sat on the edge of his desk, eyes fixed on the floor as he described the dream, the fire, the butchery, his fight with Zack and the inevitable ending. How the dream left him with such powerful images that they superimposed themselves over Zack's real self for hours afterwards.

"I'm sorry, Zack, I know how this must sound. But I swear to you I'm not aware of any deep seeded hatred of you or desire to kill you. I love you. I have for a long time, and yet this dream persists."

"Well," Zack said thoughtfully, "I can't say I'm not a little disturbed. But I guess it's not new; it's just that I know about it now." He cast his hand down the side of Sephiroth's face and laid it on his shoulder. He could do that now. He could touch him if he needed to, and the security of that knowledge took all the edge off this new revelation. "I'm going to hold to my faith in how you feel about me, rather than my fear of your psychosis. And that's probably all this is, some little bit of psychosis left over from your brain-scrambling past. Frankly I'm always surprised you do as well as you do."

Sephiroth continued to look at the floor. "There's another piece sometimes, if I don't wake up right away," he continued. "After I leave you I am looking at something, transfixed by it, something green that fills me with the most intense desire. And then I feel a pain through the middle of my body, and look down to see the tip of a big sword protruding form my stomach. I think it's your buster sword, but it's not you wielding it. It's your pet, the blond boy Cloud. He's pissed. He says something about how disappointed he is in me, something about family. I can't understand him; I'm so full of green, buzzing greed. I guess it makes sense that he should be the one to finish me, being fond of you he becomes your avenger."

"But you said you've been having this dream for a year? You only just met Cloud."

"I must have seen him earlier. He looked familiar to me while we were out in the swamp, I just couldn't place him then."

But Zack could feel the hair rise on the back of his neck. Maybe Sephiroth had seen Cloud before he dreamed about him, or he was mistaken in some aspect of the dream. But Zack was remembering something Tessa had told him this morning when he went down to check his levels. She had been trying to find some commonality between Soldiers coded "J", a secret project acronym that appeared to be tied to Sephiroth's non-human genes. And she had found something; they all had on at least one occasion prophetic dreams. Very intense, repetitious, _prophetic_ dreams.

"Seph, have you told Tessa about this dream?"

"No. I didn't want to alarm her." He thought about it now though, she made so many other things happen for him, and she understood his psychology and physiology better than anyone. "Though you're right, maybe I should. Maybe she can help."

"That's the spirit. How do I look to you now?" Zack asked.

Sephiroth raised his head slowly and looked at Zack's concerned face, then swept down his body. No wounds spontaneously appeared. No blood. Just the smooth fabric of his standard issue T-shirt, belted fatigues over narrow hips, his entire form toned and ready. Vital, alive. The dream images had cleared.

"Like a Soldier," he said, and Zack smiled.

ccccccccccccccccccccc

Dinner with Tessa always felt kind of festive to Zack. Even if it was leftovers the smells were intoxicating, her mood was usually bright and she always seemed so happy just to see him. Of course she had come from a huge family, and dinner time was looked at as a party almost. Now that he understood her background better, he realized not only did she have multiple parents and six siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins almost always ate together. Sometimes the neighbors. Every Dajouan dining room must have been able to seat thirty. Or maybe they spread eaters throughout the house, Zack was unclear on that part.

Here their little family of three often ate out on the balcony if the weather was good. Zack's small balcony may have been the envy many ShinRa employees, but Sephiroth with his corner unit had an enormous wrap around affair. It probably could hold a table for thirty. Lately Zack had been trying to convince him he needed a hottub out there.

Tonight Zack was quiet during dinner, waiting for Sephiroth to bring up the topic of the dream. Sephiroth was a normally reticent companion, and eating times were no exception. This didn't seem to bother Tessa any more than it bothered Zack. She used much the same method, alternately talking about her day and pummeling her husband with questions, goading him into answering when necessary. But by the end of the meal it was Zack who attracted her attention.

"Something on your mind, Zack? You've been awful quiet," she asked.

"What? No, not me." He pointed at Sephiroth.

"My dear, you have something to say?" she looked at Sephiroth.

He moved his green eyes back and forth between them, the old hesitation binding his tongue.

"You might as well spit it out," Tessa said, "You don't have a chance to hold back now, not against both of us. Especially since Zack seems to already know."

Sephiroth drew in his breath and his entire body shifted slightly as if it were just released from some unseen bonds.

"I have a problem," he said.

"Only one?" Tessa asked, amused.

Sephiroth smiled and relaxed. "No. I'm sure I am rife with psychological problems. But only one that Zack has his teeth into tonight. It's a dream."

Tess listened as Sephiroth recounted the dream, not looking at either of his companions.

"You said you were saying something to yourself while gazing at the green... whatever. Before Cloud attacks you. What was it?" Tessa asked.

Sephiroth clenched his jaw. He hadn't wanted to tell this part. But he guessed it was probably the most important part. "I'm saying I'm a god, and I'm going to take back the planet."

"Do you feel... that you might be a god?" she asked.

"Maybe," he admitted.

Tessa made a face she was glad her husband didn't look up to see. Zack noticed, however. But he understood something she probably did not.

"It's not so far fetched, actually. He is kind of god in Soldier. Cadets join Soldier from all over the planet out of worship for him. Soldiers, grown men, would throw themselves off cliffs for him. Physically he does things no one else can, well, except..." Zack stopped, sorry for what he almost said. Sephiroth had a contemporary, once, another 'project' Soldier like himself. The rogue Genesis. Genesis succumbed to a particular brand of insanity during the Wutai war. He began to think of himself as a god.

Sephiroth looked up and was dismayed to see the degree of concentration on Tess's face.

"So you think I'm crazy? Homicidal? Dangerous?"

"Yes, you are probably all of those things. But we knew that already," she said.

Sephiroth rolled his eyes.

"But it's not what I was thinking. I think this might be a long range precog."

Sephiroth frowned, not liking the sound of that. He looked over at Zack and instantly detected the shadow of guilt on his face.

"You know something about this?"

"Uh, hardly anything." Zack leaned back in his chair and kept his eyes deliberately on Tessa.

"Don't blame him, love, I only mentioned it to him this morning. You remember how I've been trying to understand your men whose files are coded J, who seem to have been exposed to some sort of viral derivative of the same enzyme your odd genes control?"

Sephiroth nodded.

"I had been focusing on performance differences, figuring Hojo must have had some plan associated with these treatments."

Sephiroth gave a doubtful grunt.

"Well there hasn't been any significant discrepancy in strength, speed, summoning, or the short range precognition. I mean Zack's your best performer, right? And he's non-J. Just pure mako."

Zack smiled proudly.

"I had them all fill out questionnaires where they could include anything they thought... odd. All of the J-coded Soldiers mentioned their dreams. So I interviewed them. And my, they were chatty about it. I think it's been bugging them and they've been reluctant to mention it to anyone. These particular dreams were noteworthy in that they were very intense, and repetitive. Does your dream ever vary?"

"No. Sometimes I see different parts of it, but the parts never change."

"These particular dreams appear to be prophetic," she said.

"Wait a minute, you're suggesting that maybe I'm not expressing some homicidal hatred of Zack in my unconscious sleep, which would be relief, but that I'm actually going to do this thing. That's worse."

"No no, in only some of the cases did the reality play out as it was dreamt."

"How could the dream be prophetic if it didn't come true?" Sephiroth asked.

"Elements of the dream were there. These guys were dead sure they recognized the events as the dream sequence, but the outcome might be quite different. For instance, one guy dreamt repeatedly about a fight with a Bahamut while on a tower, the tower came down and dragged him, his squad, and the Bahamut under the ocean. When he was out on mission to Junon, he recognized several events, people, even dialog from the dream. He knew the Bahamut was coming and so it did. He just didn't take position on the tower. The tower went down just as he had seen on the dream. But he wasn't on it."

"Hey, that was Bilson, right? Last year?" Zack said.

"Right. He was able to sidestep his fate. Isn't that what you use the short-term precog for also?"

"Yeah," said Zack, "I can feel where things like bullets are going to be before they're fired. Saves my ass all the time, 'cause as far as I know I'm not actually fast enough to dodge a bullet once it's flying."

Sephiroth did not appear to be encouraged by this. "In my dream I'm out of my mind, and a part of me is enjoying what I'm doing. Really _enjoying_ it. How can I expect to 'sidestep' while in this condition?"

"Maybe the sidestepping should occur before you get into this state. It would help if we knew what set you off."

"I think it's just me. It feels internal." Sephiroth looked miserable.

"Ok," Tess said, not to be discouraged. "Maybe what we need to understand better is you. I think there's still quite a bit of information on you in the Nibelheim lab. The workers gave up pretty early there, it doesn't sound like they even found the actual lab in that facility. Also they claimed the place was haunted. Something about vampires." She frowned. "I've been meaning to go down there and check it out. Maybe I should go sooner rather than later."

"I'll come with you," Sephiroth said, "at least until the site is secured."

"Oh, please do. I hear Nibelheim is charming. Beautiful little mountain town. I'll need Reno, though; he has the most experience with Hojo's peculiar brand of security."

Sephiroth made a face.

"I want to go," said Zack.

"No." Sephiroth said flatly. Zack seemed to have been anticipating this.

"Then can I use your place while you're gone?"

"No."

Tessa kicked Sephiroth under the table.

"Yes," he amended, leaving Zack grinning happily. Now if he could just get that hottub installed before the General got back.


	25. On to Nibelheim

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: Ugh, I did it again, cut the chapter in the wrong spot. This first little bit should have hung off the last chapter, where Sephiroth, Zack, and Tessa are still eating dinner. I'll try to quit doing that. I don't know what my problem is. Mako addling my brain, maybe.  
**

"Zack." Sephiroth motioned Zack over to the edge of the balcony as soon as Tessa had gone back inside. "If this does come to pass, it looks like the boy Cloud may actually be the one to finish me. I want him out of regular Army and as trained and competent as he can get, as fast as you can get him there. Make him your shadow, keep him loaded up with materia full time, and make sure he can launch attacks, and… Cure3."

"Seph, I-."

"Don't argue Zack. Go get him tomorrow, I'll carve out some sort of position for him, Soldier liaison or make him your assistant or something. You'll need the help for the extra time you'll be taking out to train him. And yourself, I want you as sharp."

"Yes sir," Zack said, his anxious eyes looking out over Midgar.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"What do you mean, right now? You guys couldn't get this figured out before?" Sephiroth wished for about the thousandth time that he could launch _some_ sort of attack through the phone line. How the Soldier Division wound up subservient to the VP of customer relations was beyond him.

"Sorry, General, there was some sort of mix-up and the cultural guy's report got overlooked until just now. But the meeting's all scheduled with the Emperor, we have to leave within the hour and the whole thing will fall apart if you aren't along."

Sephiroth considered telling the man to go to hell, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the trouble it would cause. "I'll be at the loading dock in an hour," and he hung up over what he thought was probably a thank-you or other annoying social nicety. He was all packed to head out to Nibelheim in a few hours, but needed somewhat different items for a diplomatic trip. Namely all his military decorative dress crap. Emperor Godo was a formal bastard.

He swung by Zack's office on his way to re-pack, and collided soundly with a young man who was leaving in a rush. For a moment he could see nothing but a clump of cowlicky blonde hair until the boy stepped backwards.

"Um, sorry General," he said, coloring but also smiling slightly as he slid past. Sephiroth watched him go with interest. He was looking a little bruised up, but happy.

"Cloud seems to be adjusting well," he said.

"Yeah, it's been great having him around. He does everything I tell him. Even stupid stuff."

Sephiroth hoped Zack wasn't abusing his position too badly, imagining Cloud fetching donuts or ... what was it this morning? Gluing Britton's coffee cup to the little warming plate he kept on his desk. "How's his training coming?"

"Good. He works hard. And he's kind of sneaky when he fights. Even tagged me a couple of times."

"Still stable?" Sephioroth asked. He knew Zack had pestered Tessa to think of something to get around the mako issue, and they now had him on a slow mako drip for an hour every day, and the boy had come up to a modest 50.

"Yeah, perfect."

"Good. I need you to go to Nibelheim for me. They're sending me to Wutai because apparently it's an enormous insult to negotiate anything military in nature without their actual conqueror present, and the Emperor sees that as me rather than ShinRa. Your transport leaves at two. Take the kid with you. And... look after Tess, OK?"

"No worries," Zack said.

"Oh, and Zack?"

"Yeah?"

"Behave yourself, please."

Zack smiled. The General hadn't forgotten Reno was coming.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"I hate Nibelheim."

"I thought you liked undoing all those booby traps, jumping out of the way of flying daggers and mako beasts," Rude said, watching his hyper active partner pace up and down the loading dock.

"Well, yeah, that part's fun, although the stuff behind doors number one, two, _and_ three all could give a guy the serious case of the heebie jeebies. But no, I'm talking about the town, man. There is _nuthin_ to do there."

"You could sleep," Rude suggested. Rude thought about sleep fondly for a moment, he never did seem to get enough.

"I get all the sleep I need at my desk, thanks."

"Well, I see something that ought to make you happy."

Reno turned to see Tessa, and to his great delight Zack seemed to have replaced the big silver haired Reno-hating general. Sephiroth had been particularly hostile to him lately and Reno hadn't been looking forward to spending so much time with him. There was a limit to how much bad attitude long silver hair and sculpted body could make up for, even in Reno's book.

"Zack-o!" he yelled as the arriving pair drew near. "No General today?"

"Nope," Zack smiled, "Couldn't make it, you got little ol' me instead. And you know Cloud, already, right?"

Reno nodded to Zack's blond shadow, and then sidled sideways, forcing Tessa to brush shoulders with him as she passed "Hey, darlin'," he crooned.

"Hello, Reno," she said patiently.

He tried the same trick as Zack passed him, and got himself shoved roughly for his effort,

"Mind your space, Reno," Zack said good naturedly as he guided Cloud with an arm around the far side of himself, away from the perpetually randy Turk.

Reno grinned. Damn, it was good to have Zack back to normal. And that kid was cute as hell. This wasn't going to be such a bad trip after all.

ccccccccccc

The airship landed in Corel, from there they took a ShinRa helicopter to Nibelheim. Reno insisted on flying, the pilot immediately giving up his charge with obsequious rapidity. In fact the man seemed positively nervous. Tessa was surprised, but everyone else clearly expected this behavior. It occurred to her that being constantly surrounded by Soldiers she had gotten a skewed perspective of the kind of power (or maybe just fear) Turks wielded in the company.

Tessa watched Reno suspiciously as they ascended. He did at least seem to be a competent and conscientious pilot. She half expected helicopter stunts or something, but the worst he seemed to do was insist on smoking as he flew. At least he was awake; their original pilot had fallen quickly asleep beside her, his headset occasionally bumping against hers as his head flopped side to side. They were flying through mountain passes, some of the peaks so high they were snow capped even in late summer. Tessa didn't know much about aviation, but she did know helicopters were tricky to fly, and mountainous terrain a hazard to anything in the air. Maybe it was intense concentration keeping Reno uncharacteristically quiet. Rude, sitting in what Tessa thought must be a "co-pilot" seat, was silently scanning terrain and instrumentation much the same way as Reno. Zack was busy looking out his window, as animated as a child, Cloud was behind him, lost in thought. Tessa returned to gazing out her own window.

Then she saw Nibelheim suddenly open up below them in a valley, hemmed in on all sides by snow capped peaks.

"Oh my," she said, forgetting that the microphone picked up anybody talking and piped it into the headset of everyone else.

"Pretty, aint it?" Reno replied. "Pretty dull, too, believe me."

The buildings were all an old style construction, and probably they were actually old. The town from above was a sea of sharply peaked roofs designed to shed snow, the pale sides of the buildings crisscrossed with dark wooden timbers and brightly colored shutters. The streets were so narrow it didn't look like two cars could pass one another, but she couldn't be sure since there wasn't a car to be seen.

Reno directed the helicopter towards the only sizeable flat spot in the valley big enough to land a helicopter, right in the center of town.

"This is the town square, yo," he said over their headsets. "Used to have a big fountain in the middle, but ShinRa ripped it out so we could land copters in town."

Tessa felt a pang of remorse for the fountain she'd never see. ShinRa. "Can't they land at the reactor?"

"Sure," Reno said, "But it's a ways up the mountain, and the lab is here in town. Get this, they call it 'ShinRa Mansion'. There, you can just see it."

She looked to where Reno pointed, and supposed it was the large building at the end of town, set up above the more modest dwellings. It had a similar style to the rest of the town, but where as all the town dwellings were meticulously maintained 'ShinRa Mansion' looked neglected and uninviting. The sight gave her a slight shiver.

"Creepy, huh?" Reno said. "I guess it used to belong to the town founder or something. It's so hard to build up here that ShinRa just bought it modified it. Officially it was supposed to be a lodging and long-term stay location for ShinRa employees. The lab portion was covert. The cleanup crew probably didn't even find the real lab."

"How come they didn't just build a lab attached to the reactor?"

"Don't ask me, love. Some damn thing Hojo wanted, probably."

They piled out of the helicopter in front of a small crowd of curious and suspicious faces. Tessa had an odd feeling that they were supposed to wave, or nod, or... something. She guessed they were quite a sight, the two suited men, both carrying sidearms, Zack in his Soldier gear, loading that strange enormous sword on his back immediately upon exiting, and the brightest blond head anyone could imagine on... Cloud, where was Cloud?

"We're supposed to be staying at Hotel Suisse," she said.

"Yeah, I know where it is. There is only one hotel in town, really. Hey Cloud," Reno yelled, "Toss the bags out and then get your butt out here. This bird's got to head back to Corel."

Bags literally were tossed from the door of the helicopter, one bouncing neatly off Reno's shoulder. Zack chuckled.

"C'mon, Spike, we'll get the doctor's bags."

"I can carry my own bags, Zack."

Zack gave her a 'like hell I'm going to have Sephiroth find out I didn't carry your bags' look. Cloud finally exited, his eyes fixed to the cobblestones below them.

"You sick, Cloud?" Zack asked, wondering if the helicopter ride had gotten to him.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

All five ate dinner together at the hotel, if for no other reason it was one of the few places in town to eat. There certainly were no brothels or no gambling halls for Reno to slide off to. There were some bars. "Townie" bars, he called them, full of grisly old timers. Towns like this kept their pretty daughters under close watch, and pitchfork mobbed anyone man who eyes their sons. Especially wiseasses with flaming red hair. Still, Rude had agreed to go shoot pool with Reno later at a place they knew had good beer. That would be OK. Rude's stern, no-nonsense look had a way of cancelling out the hostile stares Reno's appearance garnered.

"What _is_ it?" Reno had a nondescript lump at the end of his fork.

"I think it's some sort of gnocchi, every culture on the planet makes their own brand of dumpling thing."

Reno bit, decided it wouldn't kill him, and shoveled a plate load in.

"How do you stay so thin eating like that?" Tessa asked.

"He burns a lot of nervous energy," Rude answered for him, as Reno's mouth was full of dumpling.

The dinner group was high spirited and talkative, even Rude told a couple of humorous stories from his Turk training days. The only one completely silent was Cloud. Zack considered his young companion in the seat next to him. In the last weeks he seemed to have opened up, enjoyed his training, even smiling some of the time. But now somehow this trip had thrown him back to being shy and withdrawn. Maybe the social interaction with a group of full fledged ShinRa employees was intimidating to him.

Zack slid a long case out from where he had it stashed it under his chair and feet. None of his group had said anything when he appeared with it down at dinner because Zack was forever lugging some oversized piece of weaponry around at unexpected times. He in fact had his Buster on him or leaning up against him since the moment they landed. But they eyed him curiously now as he pushed his wine glass out of the way and balanced the thing on the edge of the table. Zack had wondered if this should be done in private, but maybe in front of their crew was better.

"This is for you Cloud," Zack said, unwrapping the bundle. It was a sword, about two thirds of the length of Zack's Buster and about half as wide. But it had a similar mechanical looking top to it. Cloud took it in his hands, blue eyes wide.

"We had to order it special; it only just came in this morning."

"We?"

"Yeah, Seph and I thought you needed to be armed with your own weapon rather than one of the training swords, you know, one you felt personal about. So keep it with you as much as you can. In the field, when we go on site patrol, that kind of thing. Everywhere but the office. Swords in the office knock a lot of coffee onto computers."

Cloud turned the bright blade around carefully, jabbed his thumb into the release and separated it into two components. He slid his chair back and stood up, hefting one blade in each hand. A bussboy meaning to pass behind their table abruptly changed his mind and went around.

"It's called a Baby Buster," Zack said, "Sorry about the name."

Reno guffawed loudly and Rude even gave a chuckle.

"Shut up, Turks," Zack said, "As if either of you could even handle a weapon like this." He turned his attention back to Cloud, "It's a fine weight for you, I think, until you're strong enough for the full deal. I'll be happy to have another Buster guy around." Zack had noticed early on Cloud's interest in the big weapon and had been training him for dual handed work and teaching him to use the mechanism.

Cloud checked his clearance, swung the blades in practiced arcs, then snapped them deftly back together. The weight was perfect and the balance better than the swords he'd been training with. But more than that, it was his, _his_, and Zack had said he would have a Buster some day. Only Soldier handled Buster. Up until that point Cloud hadn't let himself hope, told himself that maybe Zack was training with him to pass the time, or he was embarrassed to have an assistant that didn't have some skill. But Zack believed in him. The General believed in him enough to let him have this weapon. He was going to be Soldier, some way or another, damn the Dasich criteria.

"It's perfect, Zack," he said, "Thanks." Cloud reddened a little, knowing his ability to express himself fell far short of his actual gratitude.

"Congratulations, kid," Reno said, lighting up for a post dinner cigarette. "Only Soldiers and Turks are allowed to carry their personal weapons around on ShinRa business."

"So that makes him what?" Rude asked, "Not a cadet, cadets don't carry."

"Cloud's a unique case," Zack said, noticing that Cloud now suddenly looked pleased to be the center of attention. Now that he had that sword in his hands. "We'll catch him up to his first year classes and just slide him in for second year when they start. He'll probably be ahead, though. We'll just graduate him when we're sure he can get his mako level up." Zack looked over at Tessa, and Cloud followed his eyes.

"There's problem?" Reno asked.

Tessa merely shrugged. To Cloud it looked like she wasn't worried at all.

"He probably won't respond to the current mako infusion methods," she said, "but we're trying something new with him."

"Oh yeah? So what's your level, kid?" Reno asked.

"Fifty," Cloud said.

"Whoa, I'm only an eighty," Reno said appreciatively, and winked at him in a way that made Cloud look rather uncomfortable.

"Don't go above seventy, kid, it'll slow your brain down," Rude said, "You won't make a good Turk that way." Reno shot him a dirty look.

"I don't want to be a Turk," Cloud said, now smiling.

From there a lively discussion ensued on the relative merits of Turk vs. Soldier and whether or not mako treatments really had any effect on brains. Zack kept an eye on Cloud, who was quiet through this, but Zack thought he looked better. Happier. He mentally patted himself on the back. Nothing cheered a guy up like a new weapon.


	26. Wutai

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: This is pretty dark. I don't know what happened here. Sephiroth is off in Wutai and I was going to ignore him while he was there. But I got to missing him. Also, Wutai is a significant location for him, so seems there needs to be a scene. OH, and thanks ****xXxValentinexXx for some help here.**

Wutai. For Sephiroth Wutai would always be a smell. More so than the thousands of sounds and images from the war, or the taste of the food, or the peculiar lilt of the language. It was the smell of the rice fields. A particular variety that was grown in Wutai and nowhere else, and it gave off a smell so intensely green and alive that it seemed the Lifeforce itself must be dancing in its narrow shoots. To Sephiroth that smell would always mean freedom. It was heavy in the air that day he stepped of the transport for the first time in Wutai, his first time in the open air, his first day free of Hojo's enclosed, chemical saturated laboratory. He was fourteen then but nearly at his full height, and he had no idea why he had been suddenly released. He didn't much care. Everything was forgotten next to the excitement of simply for the first time being the master of his own fate, or at least his movements.

The conference Sephiroth was attending was beyond boring; it was tiring. While Emperor Godo spoke perfectly good Midgaran, he refused to do so, insisting that proper negotiations should not be insulted by imperfect language. So with great tedium everything was funneled through his minister. Although Sephiroth thought his behavior childish, he did understand the desire to feel some control over something, _anything_, in a situation where he in fact had none. Godo also refused to address any of the ShinRa officials directly even though quite a few understood Wutaianese. Tseng was from Wutai, but Godo's disdain for him was palpable at all times. He made exception for Sephiroth though, and while Sephiroth found this deference somewhat disturbing he accepted it with all the haughtiness that was clearly expected of him.

At least they had breaks, where Sephiroth would stretch his legs out on the Imperial grounds. He preferred to wander towards "the lip", a piece of the property border formed by a thousand foot sheer cliff, looking over the farmlands below. As he strolled Wutaise palace workers, all wearing identical earth toned cotton tunics and trousers, went about their business. In every respect they pretended to take no notice of the well-known foreigner, but Sephiroth could detect the oddness to their movement patterns as they adjusted their activities to stay well clear of him. Today something was different. One worker did not behave as the others. He kept the hunched over form in his peripheral, the broad hat obscuring the workers face from view. He saw the hat tilt upward a bit, and his precog alerted him to a threat to the right side of his neck. Carotid artery. _Good aim_, he thought idly as he moved slightly to let the dart pass by him and disappear harmlessly into the bushes. Poison, no doubt.

His attack was anything but idle. He pounced forward with predatory speed and grabbed the worker by the throat. His target made a bid for escape, and was so quick that Sephiroth barely made his catch. He flipped the hat away to see the disfigured face of a woman, one eye white with blindness, an ugly scar stretching above and below the ruined eye. He hoisted her with one arm into the air while her legs kicked viciously and her hands clawed to ease the grip that was slowly choking her.

Sephiroth regarded her with interest. This was something of a welcome diversion from the wearisome conference. He was impressed to find that even while lofted in his death grip her kicks were powerful and rather well aimed. He had to keep moving her around and shaking her to keep her feet off away groin. But otherwise she wasn't much of a threat this way, she had on those stealthy but soft Wutain slipper-like shoes, and his 'formal' attire for this mission included quite a bit of flashy body armor. He smiled a little as she landed a good one to his left hip, thinking that one might even make a bruise. Her eyes widened at that cold smile.

All too soon two dark blue suits appeared one on each side of his victim, and he dropped her choking and gasping into their grip.

"Sorry, General," one Turk said, although Sephiroth paid him no attention. He kept his bright gaze fixed on the hate filled dark irises of the woman they held.

Tseng came up and looked at the situation curiously, something flashing in his eyes as he viewed the woman's face.

"Demongod!" the woman finally croaked out. Sephiroth hadn't heard that in a few years, now that the war was passing into history. Also he was a little surprised he hadn't crushed her voice box, but on the other hand he hadn't been trying to kill her, he had been... amusing himself.

"Demongod!" she managed with more volume this time, and spat into his face. He saw this coming as well but made no effort to dodge. Instead he simply shut his right eye and let it hit him, then wiped the saliva away from his cheek with his forefinger and flung it onto the lawn. It was a maddening gesture to demonstrate his implacability, that he was untouchable.

"Do you no recognize me, Demongod?" the woman said in thickly accented Midgaran.

"I recognize your marks, prisoner," Sephiroth said.

"Prisoner I was! A month in you camp, sleeping in a cage while you cut and beat me at morning and at night. Was that for you instead of sex? Could not do yourself, so you had you men do. Like you did to Wutai!"

Sephiroth looked at her body, twisted from poorly healed broken bones and ligaments ripped beyond repair. It was a marvel she could walk at all. Probably she had suffered breaks in her pelvis or back. His Soldiers had been pretty rough in that part of the game. He had encouraged them to be so.

"But now I am free!" the woman said, triumph in her voice.

Sephiroth leaned forward and smiled, full of every inch of sadism he was capable of. "Are you?"

She shrank involuntarily away from him, but to her credit managed not to whimper. Tseng felt his stomach clench. He knew quite well what the Wutaian war 'hero' was capable of. But he hadn't actually seen that expression of Sephiroth in action before.

Sephiroth turned abruptly and strode away. The two Turks holding the woman looked to Tseng.

"Kill her," Tseng ordered.

At the sound of his voice the woman finally looked at him, confused recognition on her face as sharp steel bit into the side of her neck and sliced across. Tseng wondered if she was really free now.

Sephiroth reached the edge of the cliff known as the lip and stood so close to the edge that the toes of his boots hung into free space. He cleared his mind by putting the whole of his attention into his senses, drawing in that familiar smell, feeling the slight breeze directly as it brushed his skin and indirectly as it moved his hair and clothing. He sent his consciousness whole into the sound the wind made as it caressed grasses at his feet and the scattered trees down below. And he was aware of another sound, a step so light it was obviously practiced to be silent, and might have been were it not for the distinctly non-Wutain shoes.

"Come to tell me what you think of me?" Sephiroth asked.

"I don't care what you did in the war, Sephiroth." Tseng took up station along side Sephiroth, gazed into the distance as well.

Sephiroth grunted a laugh. "How can you not care? You are Wutaian."

"War," Tseng said sadly. "Where in that realm could I look and not see brutality, butchery. Cruelty. There is no honor in any corner."

They stood for several moments as if they were two ordinary people looking at some nice scenery. Sephiroth felt heat alternatively rising and retreating in his body. His mind unbidden returned to a dark, partially enclosed area, one of the many roving camps during the war. His hand held a blade, red hot from the fire. It was the night he learned that even Wutaians screamed with enough fire. He had been happy to discover that, because how could he be sure he was getting through to them otherwise? He had laughed as the acrid smell of burning flesh hit his nose, happy to be the giver of pain rather than the constant receiver. In his mind's eye he saw not his own visage at the scene, but that of Hojo's sneering, laughing face.

Looking out over the quiet Wutaian landscape Sephiroth felt the bile rise in his throat. He swallowed it back, disgusted. Ten minutes ago he had been back in that care free zone, the one where nothing bothered him. The one his youth concocted and the war cemented. What the hell was this now?

He didn't look at Tseng. He knew the man would wait, listen if he talked, not fault him if he didn't. It was Tseng's way.

"My first year in Wutai I spent learning to fight," Sephiroth said. "I arrived with superior abilities but no skill. It wasn't part of Hojo's program. I watched and learned and I could see the ShinRa army was losing. In droves I watched our men die. We were constantly ambushed, the enemy always seemed to know where we were, and the officers were suspicious and uncooperative with each other. Even at my young age I could see what the problem was. Every division was infiltrated by these women. Beautiful, graceful, subservient. Seemingly subservient. Even if I couldn't see how they were passing intelligence to the enemy it was obvious they were sewing seeds of mistrust with an efficiency that could only be deliberate. It took me another year to gain control of the army and start my war on the infiltrators. I made sure I destroyed them, emotionally, physically. I always marred their faces. And kept them long enough so their wounds could not be healed. Then I sent them back, as a message. Rape was just one more tool to drive that message home. I never did it myself, but not because I lacked the stomach for it. I felt it would have dirtied me. Filthy worms..." Sephiroth continued to look out over the land, small random muscles in his face twitching.

"You don't need to explain this to me," Tseng said.

"Why? You're still going to maintain that you don't care? Maybe I'm already forgiven? The past is unimportant?" his voice dripped with a cold sarcasm.

"No, because I already know."

Now Sephiroth looked at him. Tseng continued to look out.

"That was my division," Tseng said. "We had a name that roughly translated meant... The Ladies' Brigade." He smiled a little, sadly. "I built off the Wutai tradition of female ninjas, women trained, disciplined, and willing to sacrifice for Wutai. I turned them into prostitutes, making sure they had some special skills, and sent them in. I couldn't keep the morale up enough to continue once you started sending your... messages back. Shut us down pretty quick. We used sex as our weapon. We used it to kill and destroy. Same as you did."

Sephiroth looked at Tseng, wondering about this man. "Your method was effective," he said.

"As was yours."

Tseng stood, his heart sitting heavily on the poorly settled contents of his stomach. He regretted this dark exchange, such a contrast to their usual conversations that focused on the future rather than the past. But he supposed it was inevitable. Some shit just refused to stay buried. To his surprise it was Sephiroth who brought them out of it.

"How's your boy?" he asked.

Tseng's mood immediately lifted. Right, there was something there he meant to talk to the General about.

"Good. He's doing well, even making it to school every day, instead of too scared half the time to go. I know I mentioned to you he's in sector four bottom?"

"Hmm."

"Seems the army has been down there every day for a month. Entire squadron plus four or five Soldiers. Something about security exercises. There's not a mugger, drug dealer, gang member or even traffic violator in the whole sector. And they are all extremely well behaved for military. People wave to them and feed them cookies."

"Well, they have to exercise somewhere." Sephiroth said.

They looked out over the cliff for another long moment.

"Thank-you," Tseng said in a whisper so faint it didn't quite clear his throat.

"I heard that," Sephiroth said.


	27. The Hunt

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: The timing of my chapters is maybe a little confusing, since I've got two locations running now, Nibelheim and Wutai, and I can't tell ****if they're quite in synch or not ****because I'm posting before the whole thing is finished. But I probably should have posted the previous chapter after this one. Que sera. This is our Nibelheim team, their first full day of work. Thanks again to xXxVincentxXx, you are saving my ass now that we are getting into some elements that need to hint at the game play.**

Tessa, Zack, Cloud and the two Turks stood on the concrete doorstep of ShinRa Manor. The early morning sun shafted through overgrown vines on the trellis, glinting from dewdrop covered spiderwebs that stretched over the top of the door. Reno squinted heavily even though the morning light was still dim.

"Tell me again why we're here so fucking early?" he whined.

"It's just to piss you off, dear," Tessa said. She noticed Zack was also looking kind of surly. Neither of those two were morning people.

"At least I wasn't the one puking my guts this morning," Reno said, eyeing Tessa. "My room's next to yours, doll, the walls aren't that thick. I could hear you." Reno made a faux retching motion, the antics of which seemed to perk him up considerably.

"Shut it, Reno," Zack said, then stepped close to Tessa. "You sick?" he asked, the concern plain on his face. "You didn't drink last night."

"Must have been the gnocchi," she said, moving away from Zack, leaving him sullen and a little worried. She pulled a key out of her bag for the padlock on the boarded up door, wondering why they bothered locking it. Like every supposed "haunted house" in small towns local kids had busted out most of the windows with rocks.

"Oh," she said as she stepped through the door. The place had clearly once been a showcase, and Tessa wondered if the heyday of ShinRa hadn't already passed. They were in an enormous, three story atrium, the remnants of long dead trees still standing guard around its perimeter. The glass above was mostly intact although in the last twenty-five years it had taken to leaking, leaving large circular water stains on the marble floor. The morning light filtered in through the dust they stirred up with their feet, and even treading lightly their footsteps echoed in the lonely space. For a long moment all five were silent. It was clear why the cleanup crew had been nervous. Something about the place exuded a sleeping malignance.

Tessa looked over to Reno. They were here to unlock some secrets and he was their lead in that effort. But the Turk was staring fixedly up through the ceiling glass, head all the way back, eyes shut and mouth hanging half open. Tessa watched him, wondering if he was capable of taking a nap in that position.

"Reno?" she said, "Where do you want to start?"

He brought his head back upright, eyes still half lidded but smiling now. "Let's split up, yo. Cleaning crew has already been through this general area so it should be safe. We're looking for anything that looks locked, jiggered, hollow, not right. But if you find something like that don't touch it. Come get me or Rude. If you find something that needs killin', go get Zack. Especially if it smells bad."

Zack rolled his eyes at the redhead. They split up between the rooms on lower and upper levels, Reno taking a room immediately off of the atrium that looked like an office. A huge mahogany desk dominated the center of the room and shelves lined one wall. It was clear from the rectangular marks on the floor that were relatively clear of dust that at least some of the file boxes Tessa had received came from here. Also most of the stuff from the shelves appeared to have been taken. He poked and peered at the shelves, shining various specialized lights at their corners, removed the shelves from their pegs, then with only a hint of apprehension moved both bookcases out from the wall.

"Yeah, nuthin'," he muttered to himself. He gave the desk the same treatment, the floor, the corners of the room, the ceiling panels. If he was lucky one of the others would find something, but probably he and Rude were stuck combing through every inch of the place themselves. This room looked pretty clean, even the desk didn't have much in it. He sat down in the desk chair, fingering the items from the top drawer. Usual desk stuff, stapler, tacks, rubber bands that had turned to dust. A lighter with fuel long evaporated. The lighter was a little odd. Surely an office of this importance would have been Hojo's, and he didn't recall Hojo ever smoking. The tacks were a little odd too. There was no cork board in the room for tacks, nor did it look like one had been removed. The walls were free of tack marks. Reno stared at the door which was wide open and up against the wall. Then got up and pulled it shut while still inside the room.

Bingo.

Tacked to _inside_ of the door was a note, in what he was pretty sure was Hojo's witchy scrawl. Reno carefully removed the brittle paper from the door. It's possible this note had been there since the place was shut up twenty five years earlier. The ink was quite faded, but it was clearly a note to somebody, from Hojo. Reno smiled. Damn, if these weren't directions to the lab. They were somewhat cryptic, obviously the recipient was expected to know something already, and there was an oblique warning.

"Beware the meddlesome Turk," Reno read aloud. He smiled, thinking of his predecessors giving Hojo trouble so many years ago.

"Well _I_ am a meddlesome Turk," he said to the note as he fingered the paper. The center felt odd. He remembered the non-functioning lighter in the desk, and pulled out his own lighter. Carefully he lit the flame behind the note and brought it closer. Dull yellow lines appeared in front of where he heated the paper. The number four, encircled, and the number 97. He smiled again, because he knew what this was. Hojo loved to put combination locks on all sorts of things, but he must have had a terrible memory for numbers because he had to write down the combos. But he was too paranoid to write them all in one place. He spread them around and hid them, 97 was the fourth number in some combo to something. Maybe the lab door. He went out into the hallways, his step lively with the thrill of a chase.

"Hey Rude," he yelled, "we're looking for-."

Rude was already coming out of the room he was searching. "Combination numbers?" he said, holding up a small slip of paper.

Rude had found #2, and both headed to the room which housed the lab entrance, at least according to Hojo's note. It was upstairs. So it was an upper story lab. Reno thought that was odd, he always thought of Hojo as more of a basement dweller. Zack was just coming out of the room in question.

"Nothing in here," Zack said.

"You think so, Zacko?" Reno swaggered past him and looked around. He spotted immediately where the hidden door must be. "Brick wall, Zack? That doesn't strike you as odd on a second floor bedroom?"

Zack shrugged.

Reno peered at the wall, touched its rough surface lightly with his fingertips, and examined it with one of his lights. Then he turned the small flashlight over and gave one spot a hard push with the butt end, jumping off to the side as the section moved and a large door slid outwards a few inches with a mournful groan. Nothing leaped out at him, nothing sharp or pointy flew at him from the opening. He unholstered his electromag baton and pushed the door farther open. It was stiff with age, but was weight compensated and on springs. It probably floated open like a dream at one time. He motioned to Rude who pulled out a truly enormous flashlight and shone it into the darkness.

"Whoa," Reno said. Zack came forward and looked over their shoulders. A narrow spiral staircase descended beyond the reach of the flashlight beam into the darkness. Both Rude and Reno tried to step forward at the same time, Rude's wide shoulders pinching his narrow partner against the door frame.

"You want to go first, be my guest," Rude said, holding out the flashlight.

Reno felt around on the wall near the entrance; no light switch. Figured. Light should have come on with the door opening, so the bulb was probably just out. He snatched the flashlight from Rude and headed cautiously down.

"Fifty five steps," Reno said. "Gentlemen, we are in the _basement_." He had been right. Hojo was a basement dweller. "And we are looking at a door, a locked door. Who puts a lock on a door behind a hidden door?" Reno gave it a small kick in frustration.

"Hojo," Rude said.

"Hojo." Reno peered at the lock. "I can't pick this thing. We need the key."

"Probably up there somewhere," Rude said, waving his scrap of paper with the second combo number on it.

"Right," Reno said, turned and collided with Zack's chest. "Gaia, Zack, you're like a concrete wall! Move, willya? You're making me claustrophobic."

Reno slid past the other two men and Rude shrugged. "He is a little claustrophobic."

Zack smiled. He would have to keep that in mind for later.

When they got back up to the top Tessa and Cloud were peering down the staircase.

"Is the lab... down there?" Tessa asked.

"Probably," Reno said, "Door's locked. We need a key. You guys find any keys?"

Both shook their heads. "Anything odd, numbers written on anything maybe?"

"I found a slip of paper with a number on it" Tessa said, holding out a piece with the number one circled on it and a 36.

"I thought I said not to open anything that looked hazardous."

"It was just lying behind this chest," she said.

"Lying behind a chest," Reno repeated. Maybe it was true, that ladies were lucky.

"I found something odd," Cloud said. All eyes turned to him. He swallowed and reminded himself not to be nervous. Just his teammates; he was part of this team. "There's a small safe right in the middle of some kind of sitting room. It's bolted to floor."

"Really?" Reno raised his eyebrows. "That is odd. Good eye kid, Zack would have probably found that normal."

Cloud shot an apologetic glance at Zack, but the Soldier didn't seem bothered at all by Reno's dig, or even hear it even though he was looking fixedly at the Turk while he said it. Cloud recognized Zack's look, that scheming concentration that usually conscripted Cloud for some covert pranking later.

Reno slung an arm around Clouds shoulder. "Show me," he said.

Reno looked down at the safe. It was small, but it was plenty big enough for a key. He took out an electronic widget and fitted it into one ear and pressed his ear close to the dial. He gave the dial a small spin and shook his head.

"It's got some active mako entity in there, buzzing away. I can't hear tumblers through that. Looks like a standard combo lock, though, four numbers. We're still missing the third.

"Fifty-nine," Rude said, coming into the room with another scrap of paper, using his teeth to pull what looked like a large wooden splinter from his palm.

Reno reviewed all four slips, then went to work twisting the dial, turning smoothly and quickly while his companions looked over his shoulder.

"I think you lost a number," Tessa said.

"No way," Reno said, "four numbers, I got them all, yo." He flipped the latch and all five of them were blown backwards. Tessa slid across the floor on her bum, leaving a butt-width clean stripe in her wake, Cloud was tossed over a table, and Zack actually cracked cabinet where his buster sword on his back impacted the doors. Reno lucked out as Rude stopped his progress by becoming pinned between his partner and the wall. Rude shoved him off, rubbing where one of Reno's sharp elbows had dug into his ribs. Everyone else made a mental note not to stand so close to Reno the next time he opened something.

"What was that?" Zack asked. For a moment the room was silent, stale smelling dust hanging in the air. The five of them waited, looking from one to another.

"Pretty fucking non-lethal for a Hojo booby trap," Reno said, cautiously approaching the door, which now hung barely open with blackness only beyond it. He pulled out his electromag baton and gently pushed the door farther open, tilting his head slightly to peer into the blackness. Then suddenly he jerked, swinging the baton in a blur until it cracked into something solid and the end lit with an electric crackle.

"Shit, something reached out for me." he said, making a quick jump away as all four men drew weapons. Tessa, deciding her clipboard was not much use for defense, moved judiciously behind Zack.

Another tense minute passed as they stared at the door. Then they heard a soft moan, and another.

"I think you hurt it, Reno." Rude said. Reno sneered at his partner.

Slowly another noise began, a growl with a harsh scraping undertone. The volume increased until the floor under them shook, dislodging pictures from the wall and knocking over items on tables and shelves. Then the safe door flew off, flying with lethal speed between the two Turks as they leapt away from one another. Then the tiny safe vomited an explosion of red and blue and horrendous noise. Gunfire filled the room from the right and Buster swords large and small began hacking away at the thing from the left.

"Thing" was the closest descriptor Tessa could come up for it, for although it seemed to have some sort of head and limbs, the proportions were nothing like any animal she could think of. Its head was enormous and all of its pointed teeth seemed to protrude from the lower jaw. It's bruise colored blue and reddish fur, or maybe feathers, were glued together in mats and it smelled like rotted meat. It was by far the biggest and ugliest booby trap beast of Hojo's she had ever seen. It was howling in rage and hopefully pain as it swung clawed arms towards its assailants, all of whom appeared hard pressed to keep it from getting squashed. One enormous claw swung out towards Zack, who jumped clear, flying over the thing, swinging as he went. His Buster sword caught part of its bloated shoulder. The thing barely noticed this two foot deep gash into its enormous bulk, and instead redirected its grab towards Tessa. She screamed and scrambled backwards, just managing to avoid its reach. One clawed hand hit the floor in front of her, cracking the tile. She brought the edge of the clipboard down as hard as she could, shattering the acrylic and driving the shards into its fingers just above the claws. The hand retreated, but then made another try. Before the enormous arm could reach her she felt something land on her from the side, the force sliding her sideways behind a lounger.

"Um, stay down please," Cloud's face was inches from hers, his battle heated body pressing down on her. He scrunched up his face in embarrassed discomfort and Tessa wondered that he could find the propriety to feel embarrassed the middle of a fight. The truth was that she always made him extremely nervous, and to find himself lying on top of the General's wife brought him far more fear than the beast they were battling.

There was an enormous thud followed by some grunting and ripping noises and the room went silent. Tessa peeked out from behind her impromptu shelter. Zack had apparently cut the thing's head off just to be safe and no small task that was; its neck was at least fifteen feet thick. Cloud and Zack's blades, not to mention they themselves, were covered in black goo that she assumed was the creature's blood. They were carefully wiping their swords against some upholstery. Both Turks stood with their firearms hanging limply at their sides, Reno with that strange stick of his slung over a shoulder. Then all four men smiled, and laughed a little. Maybe some sort of hysteria, Tessa thought. She certainly was less than amused.

"I want a weapon next time," she said. This induced an entirely new round of laughter, and Zack leaned over, caught Cloud around the neck and kissed him on the side of the head. Cloud beamed at him, full of obvious pride.

"Ah, there's that 'Soldier kiss' your guys always do," said Reno, and repeated the gesture to Rude, who nearly knocked him out.

"So what's in here that's worth all this trouble?" Reno said. He walked over to the safe and heedlessly stuck his hand inside, causing all four of his companions to yell in alarm. Smiling wickedly he brought out a key. He was pretty sure there was no more Reno eating beasts in there, it wouldn't have fit Hojo's pattern. Of course there was always a first time for everything, but the look on their faces was worth the risk. Especially those two cocky Soldiers.

"Key to the kingdom, my lady," Reno said, handing Tessa the key. She snatched it from them and headed for the spiral stairwell.

"Nuh uh," Zack caught up to her, taking the key back. She pouted her lips at him, a sight the young man must have liked because it made him smile.

"Hey mister 'I'll-stick-my-hand-in-anything-without-fear'," he said to Reno, "You're opening this door too."


	28. The Basement

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N:** I know virtually nothing about how genes are sequenced and had to resort to internet research, so if I've written something ridiculous regarding that I apologize.

Tessa tapped one small foot at the top of the stairs, considering just going down and telling Zack Fair she'd had her fill of all this chivalrous crap. Then she remembered the giant claw reaching for her. Cloud had abandoned the others temporarily to help her. She sat down on the top step and listened. She heard a noise that might have been the door opening, but there was no growling or howling or gunfire.

"Looks like the lab, alright," she heard Zack say, and then Rude, "Is that a coffin?"

Tessa bounded down the stairs. Off to her right she could see the lab. In the small room they stood in, however, was what indeed looked like a coffin.

"I hate Hojo," Rude said. "What is in that thing? Do we have to open it?"

"Well I sure aint turning my back on it, yo," Reno said. He looked all around the coffin's lid, shining the small UV light he carried all around the seam. "Nuthin' on the outside," he declared. "Get ready to jump, though."

Reno slowly pried the lid open, and found the coffin did in fact hold a corpse. A fantastically well preserved, odorless corpse. Then in a flash the corpse reached up, grabbed the lid, and slammed it shut.

With a common yell of surprise all four men jumped away from the coffin.

"Fuck, this is just the kind of nightmare shit Hojo would keep in his basement," Reno said.

But Tessa had already darted forward and was opening the lid again. 'Beware the meddlesome Turk', Hojo's note had said. When she hoisted the lid she got a better view of the familiar looking face. The body inside moved to close the lid again, but she spoke.

"Please don't."

Slowly, the man lying there opened his eyes. But these were not the eyes she had seen in the Turk's photograph. These glowed red, and they vaguely terrified her as the idea of eyes burning from the fires of Hell jumped into her mind. Of course that was just Dajouan folklore, nobody enlightened believed in Hell. She reasoned it must be some sort of mako glow, although no soldier, no matter what shade of brown he started with, went to red. They all tended towards amber.

"Vincent Valentine?" she said.

The coffin occupant seemed at first not to hear her.

"Who are you?" he finally whispered.

Tessa had to lean her head in close to hear him. He was wrapped in an unlikely bright red shroud, some sort of bandage of the same material wound around his head. Her first thought was that he was soaked in blood, but of course that was ridiculous, old blood was brown, not red. Long black hair flowed around the head dressing, and she had a strange urge to touch it. It had been short in the photo, and she supposed it had been growing while in this hibernative state for twenty-five years.

"I think I'm your daughter-in-law," she said softly.

He paused, maybe struggling to process her words. "I have no children," he said.

"I know you probably think that, given your circumstances. But Lucrecia Cresent's son was yours." She thought she saw him wince slightly.

"Impossible."

"Not impossible. Life, death, and the timing of both may be altered in this environment. You yourself are proof of that." Vincent Valentine was silent. Tessa hoped he understood. He should find that believable, given his current state. But of course she wasn't sure what state that was, or more to the point what state his mind was in.

"What in Shiva's name is she doing?" Rude said, keeping his voice low

"Talking to the stiff," Reno said, "I can't hear, what are they saying, Zacky?"

"Shhh," Zack said, he was straining to hear himself.

The man in the coffin finally moved his eyes, taking in as much of Tessa as he could without moving his head.

"He's grown then. He has no need of me," he said.

And with that he slammed the lid shut again with violent force. If Tessa hadn't been training with Zack to move with some speed he would have struck her with it.

"Well, that's one crabby corpse," Reno said.

"Did I hear right?" Zack asked, "That's Vincent Valentine?"

Tessa nodded.

"Who's Vincent Valentine?" Rude asked.

"Seph's father," Zack said.

Reno let out a low whistle. "Well, that makes all kinds of sense... sort of. Least we know where the General gets his manners from. What do we do with him Tess?"

She considered. "Let's leave him for now. We've disturbed him, maybe for the first time in twenty-five years. Maybe he'll wake up a little more. Try again tomorrow."

"I'm still not turning my back on it," Reno said.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

They spent the rest of the day in the lab, looking for documentation, rummaging through cabinets, poking at old, long forgotten equipment. Reno was bored to find no more locks or booby traps, and Cloud was falling asleep leaning up against a corner. Tessa looked at the young blonde sweetly. At least he and Zack had been able to clean up some in the lab sinks, since plumbing (and lights) gratefully still worked in this area.

"Can't we just grab everything and head back, Tessa?" Reno whined. "Do you have to read it all while we sit here?"

Tessa shook her head. "There's quite a bit here regarding the project, but something's missing. Seems like all the samples came in from the reactor, there must be some facility there. We may not be looking in the right place."

"Whoa, wait a minute, yo," Reno said. "I thought we were just cleaning out all data here so it could be logged and organized, that kind of shit. Are you telling me we're looking for something special? Zacky, you wouldn't keep me in the dark, now would you?"

"Maybe," Zack said. Then he reconsidered. They were a team, and they should be informed. Or at least mostly.

"We are specifically looking for everything on a particular project," he said, "And were not leaving until we're sure we've gotten it all. The project is coded "J"."

"I think 'J' is for Jenova," Tessa said. "That mean anything to any of you?"

They all shook their heads.

"It looks like Jenova is a person, or maybe more correctly some sort of entity. There's quite a lot of data on her cells, how they communicate when separated. How indestructible they are..."

"_Her_ cells?"

"Yeah, Jenova is referred to as a 'she'".

"Reno's been referred to as a 'she'," Rude said. Reno gave a middle finger reply.

"Then there's this whole other section full of Cetra poetry." she wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I guess because the Cetra found her first. Looks like the ShinRa team originally thought Jenova _was_ a Cetra, but later figured out the Cetra had buried her because they thought her some sort of threat to the Planet." Tessa moved some papers around. "Gaia, two thousand years ago. ShinRa dug her up in the... Northern Crater."

Zack, Reno, and Rude looked at each other.

"What?" She said.

"'Spose that's why we guard that place all the time?" Reno asked.

"You mean you Turks don't know what's up there?" Zack asked.

Both shook their heads. "Even Tseng doesn't know," Reno said.

"How would you know what Tseng does and doesn't know?" Rude asked.

"I put spyware on his computer, yo. He often is hacking around in the system looking for info on the crater."

"Tseng is going to disappear you some day," Rude said. Reno shrugged, unconcerned.

"So if she wasn't a Cetra, what was she?"

"Calamity that fell from the sky..." Tessa said. "Space alien?"

"Seph's got space alien genes in his body?" Zack sounded alarmed.

"It looks like Hojo injected him as a fetus with cells from this thing. I don't see any actual genetic code from Jenova that could match with – Oh wait, here it is."

She unfolded a table sized printout and laid it on a lab bench, a dense array of what must be codons filling the page. They all had five letter sequences. Tessa swore appreciatively. She suddenly knew why Hojo's sequencing data of Sephiroth always ran all the frames together instead of breaking them into the standard groups of three nucleotides that dictated all life on their planet. It was so he could look at it and free float in his mind which might be triples and which might be these... quintuplets. She bit back an involuntary admiration for the bastard. But in focusing so hard to see the non-human expression in the code he had missed the obvious, which she had seen right away for not knowing any better. That Sephiroth's code was flexible enough to fit the three-nucleotide model. Hojo never checked, assuming it would not. No wonder he thought Sephiroth couldn't breed. But there was probably some real benefit to analyzing the code as a mixture of threes and fives. It was a cognitive rat's nest, but she would figure this out too. It's what she was good at; the Lifestream had made her so. And she had a hell of a lot more at stake than Hojo, she'd pry all of his secrets free even if he was a brilliant, obsessive maniac. She just needed time. Problem was something in her gut was nagging at her, that they were somehow running out of time.

Zack watched Tessa running a finger among the inscrutable mass of letters. She looked up and saw something akin to worry on his face. She probably resembled an obsessed maniac.

"Let's call it a day," Tessa said, a growl from her stomach reminding her that none of them had eaten lunch. And she had skipped breakfast. "We can call the reactor tomorrow and see if they have anything over there of interest."

Zack made a clucking noise with his tongue. "We'll have to go up there personally," he said, "Reactor people aren't exactly cooperative to the Midgar units."

"Well, fine, we'll go up there then. How do we get there?"

"You can walk," Cloud said, apparently not as asleep as he looked, "Takes about twenty minutes from here. Or you can catch this shuttle that takes people up and down three or four times a day, that takes about five minutes."

They all stared at him.

"What?" he asked.

"How do you know that Spike?" Zack asked.

"I told you I'm from Nibelheim."

Zack looked up towards the ceiling, clearly trying to jog his memory. "Well, I remember it was some little town..."

"You're hopeless, Zacko," Reno said. "We got a guy on our team familiar with the town and we aren't even taking advantage of him. How come you didn't say anything before, kid?"

"I'm not exactly happy to be back here," Cloud said.

"Well, tonight _you're _picking the dinner spot."


	29. Mucking Around Town

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

**A/N: Wow, this has got to be my worst chapter title to date, but man I am just fresh out of ideas. **

Tessa wiped the sour liquid from her bottom lip with a tissue and flushed the toilet. She was getting a little tired of the close up view of its bowl. Plus what she was throwing up was a bit green. Just a little, though. Maybe greenish was normal. Or maybe it was a bit of mako. She'd never thrown up before, least not since she was old enough to remember. She'd not surveyed Soldiers if they upchucked green. Maybe she could ask Zack.

She dressed and walked down the hallway to Zack's room and knocked on the door. Reno appeared instead, wearing absolutely nothing and with a gun in his hand. He moved his forefinger off the trigger and laid it along the barrel, apparently completely unconcerned with his lack of clothing.

"_You're_ not what I want," Tessa said, making sure to keep her eyes on his face.

He smirked at her. "How do you know babe? You haven't had me. Yet." He winked at her.

"Ugh, Reno! Where's Zack, isn't this his room?"

Reno yawned. It was way too early for this much commotion. "Oh, so it's Zack you want? Made me switch rooms with him, yo. But you know where I am if you change your mind."

She humphed and walked away, apparently Zack was now in the room next to hers. When she got there he was already in his doorway, at least with the decency to have a pair of boxers on.

"Oh, you're up," she said.

"All that ralphing next door woke me up." he said, and cought her elbow to draw her into his room.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

"I... I think I'm OK," she said. "You ever throw up since you've been enhanced?"

"Nope."

"Never? Never tied one on so bad you tossed your cookies?"

"I've drunk a hell of a lot on a couple of occasions, but never lost it. And you know I don't get sick. Why?"

"Because it's kind of greenish."

"I think greenish yellow is OK, even for normal people. At least that's how I remember it from before."

"Oh. I don't know much about normal people. Or at least their bile."

He held her hand for a moment before venturing farther.

"So why are you throwing up?"

"I'm not sure."

"I need to know," he said.

"You _need_ to know?"

"Yeah, in a 'I need to keep my teeth all in my head and my limbs attached' sort of way. I'm supposed to be looking out for you."

"Ah," she said.

"So?"

"Just give me a few more hours, OK? Then I can tell you what I know. Or don't know. Deal?"

Zack nodded his agreement, pacified for the moment.

"I don't want to go up to the reactor this morning. Will you tell the guys I've got something to do? I'll catch up with you at lunch. That cafe where we ate desert last night? Maybe you can have Cloud show you around town or something."

"Hey yeah, that might be fun. But first I'm going back to sleep another hour."

"Lazybones," she said, rising up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"Congratulations, Mrs... Sephiroth?" A middle aged nurse was holding Tessa's chart and flipping through its pages.

"It's Dr. Romera, thanks," Tessa said. It still amazed her that people did that. Her name was clearly right at the top of the patient form, but somehow the word 'Sephiroth' anywhere (in this case under 'spouse') commanded all their attention.

"Oh," said the nurse, some interest now in her tone. "Are you a medical doctor?"

"Yes, although currently I head the Midgar medical research laboratory." Another detail already in the paperwork the nurse held, Tessa thought.

"My, but you seem so young for that," the nurse said, glancing for about the tenth time at Tessa's odd colored eyes. "Did you replace that other fellow, that awful one they called the Professor?"

Tessa's ears pricked as she pushed aside any annoyance from the nurse's previous comments. "Yes, I replaced Dr. Hojo. He's... no longer with the company. He used to work in Nibelheim, did you know him?"

"I knew _of_ him," the nurse said, then laughed and dropped her voice to a near whisper "Everybody knew of him. They used to say people went up into ShinRa Manor and never came out. That screams came from the place at night."

"But you never met the Professor?"

"Once, when his wife had the baby. That must have been over twenty years ago. I was just in training then, barely out of school. I've never seen a man so unconcerned for his wife's labor pains. He didn't even allow her to stay overnight. An hour after the baby was born he whisked them both away."

"Was there anything else out of the ordinary about the birth?"

"I didn't see the baby up close, but nothing seemed amiss, except that Hojo fellow." The nurse wrinkled her nose and made a disgusted face.

"I need to see those records."

The nurse looked doubtfully at Tessa. Tessa smiled sweetly back. "It's OK, I have full clearance for all ShinRa medical information. We can call over to Midgar Admin and confirm."

They didn't find any records on the birth of Lucrecia Cresent's baby. There were no records on Lucrecia Cresent at all, although the nurse was sure she must have been in for prenatal care because the ShinRa Hospital and Medical Clinic was the only care facility in town. Tessa wasn't surprised, Hojo probably had them all pulled long ago. But it took some work though convincing the staff that she in no way thought it was an error on their part.

After Tessa left a junior receptionist was given her record to file. But wasn't there something she was supposed to do? She pulled out her enormous ShinRa procedure book she had just received at the training session. Ah, here it was. Use the emergency contact for all emergency visits. Was that an emergency visit? Well, the lady didn't have an appointment, so emergency was the other type of visit, wasn't it? She looked up the emergency contact number. Sephiroth. Wasn't he that hot soap opera guy? Was that a first or last name? Must be a first name she decided, cracking her gum. She dialed the number and got the voice mail for his PHS. Well, she didn't want to be the one telling the man he had a baby coming. So she left a generic message.

"This message is for Sephiroth Romera, this is the ShinRa hospital in Nibelheim, this is just to let you know your wife is visiting us here."

_There_, she thought with satisfaction. That should do it.

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

"Where to next, Spike?" Zack stepped lazily onto the street, side by side with Cloud. The day was bright, the air crisp and cool and somehow free of reactor pollution, even though the reactor was just outside of town. Something to do with the wind patterns through the mountains, he supposed.

They had just eaten breakfast with Cloud's mother and aunt. Shiva, how they fussed over Cloud. Nonetheless for the fact that Cloud had apparently not warned them he was coming. But Zack remembered when he had first left home; for awhile a guy just wants some space from his family. To prove he can stand on his own two feet.

Zack had been fussed over almost as much, and he had put on his best charm (which was considerable) for the two older ladies. The food was good, but they kept pestering them both about their romantic lives. Especially poor Cloud; Zack got the distinct impression his mother wanted to see him settled down as soon as possible.

"We could head up Olde Pass a ways, there's a ruin up there and a fantastic view of the town. Oh, I forgot, mom wanted us to take snacks with us; she'll be all upset if we forget them. Hang on." Cloud trotted back to the house, and Zack took a seat on the curb, figuring correctly that Cloud would not be released immediately after going back in.

He looked up and down the street, charming house, charming house, charming house... was there no seedy part to this town? He had been in Midgar so long he sometimes forgot what these little towns were like. A few houses down a door opened and a girl came out. She was walking his direction, her long loose brown hair swinging behind her. Zack stood up and gave her one of his most dazzling smiles.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi." She looked him up and down, taking in his uniform, eyes lingering on the oversized sword peeking out from behind his back. "Are you from the Midgar team?" she asked.

"Yup, Zack Fair," he held out his hand. Her hand was small but she took his with confidence, and Zack gauged by the feel of her touch whether he should kiss her hand or not. Often that worked quite well, especially when he was the exotic guy from out of town, but for this one - no. There was something no-nonsense about her handshake.

"Tifa Lockheart," she said. "We heard General Sephiroth was coming, is he here?"

"No," Zack said, detecting yet another Sephiroth admirer. "He couldn't make it, so he sent me. I'm second in command to the General."

"Oh!" she said, now leaning towards him ever so slightly with a blink of long eyelashes. Now he was getting somewhere. And she was a real beauty, big, dark, liquid eyes and a knockout figure.

Just then Cloud came out of his house, his mother waving after him. Tifa looked up.

"Cloud!" She jumped a little and waved.

Cloud seemed to jerk forward a bit, stopped, reddened, then walked towards them at a normal pace.

"Hey Tifa," he said, a casual tone to his voice that Zack could tell was forced. Cloud frowned at Zack's hand which still held the hand Tifa had forgotten. She slipped it out of the Soldier's gentile grip. Zack smiled, understanding immediately, and distanced himself from the girl. But poor Cloud appeared to be tongue tied.

"Hey, maybe you'd like to join us," Zack said, "we were just going up, what'd you say Cloud?"

"Oh, Olde Pass." Cloud said. Zack was amazed to see him turn even redder. This was an entirely new level of human facial redness in Zack's experience. He wondered how far the kid could go with it.

"Sure," Tifa said. "I was just going to do some shopping, but I can do it later."

"Great," Zack said. "You two lead the way, 'cause I sure don't know where I'm going."

The younger couple chatted about Nibelheim affairs, Tifa doing most of the talking. Zack, content to be the third wheel, listened to their tone rather than their words. If he wasn't mistaken there was some sort of tension other than sexual in the air. Then Tifa must have run out of gossip, because there was a minute of silence.

"Cloud, we heard they took you out of the cadet program."

Zack saw Cloud look at the ground and wondered if this was the reason he didn't tell anyone he was coming home. Did he think himself a failure? Zack shook his head, this would never do. He stepped up and slung an arm around Cloud's shoulder.

"Well it _was_ a waste of his time." Zack said, "We always take a few out to put on accelerated tracks. That way he can train with real Soldiers and we can use him on missions right away." Zack saw Tifa's eyes widen. Cloud looked up at Zack, a little fearful. Zack winked at him. Let the town gossip mill chew on that one for awhile, he thought.

"Oh, Cloud, that's wonderful! Tifa wrapped her arms around the surprised blond boy. Then she seemed to remember herself and took a step back. With supreme satisfaction Zack saw it was her turn to redden.

"We're at the trail," she said, clearly flustered. "It's not long, but there is some climbing." She started up the rugged looking trail. Cloud lingered back for a moment.

"Zack?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks, but what am I going to say if I never make Soldier?"

Zack frowned at him. "Don't talk stupid. Nobody fights at my side the way you did yesterday and not makes Soldier. I think you forget who you're questioning here."

Cloud blanched slightly at Zack's sudden sternness. "No sir, I mean yes sir." Cloud winced. He wasn't sure how to respond to that. Then Zack grinned at him and gave him a shove up the hill.

Cloud hurried to follow Tifa, shaking his head. Zack was a mystery he probably would never figure out.


	30. Voices in the Reactor

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: I added a small bit here about Tessa thinking about the baby, because one reviewer pointed out (rightly so) that it's not reasonable for a woman to have no reaction to finding out she's pregnant. It was just laziness. I need the baby thing as a plot device, but I'm not very interested in babies myself. BUT Tessa is supposed to be. So I make an effort... a small one. Better luck next fic I write, I guess. **

Tessa stood in the middle of the town enjoying the air and her quaint surroundings, thinking excitedly about the changes about to come to her life. She wanted to tell somebody, maybe everybody. Mostly she wanted to tell Sephiroth, she _needed_ to hear his reaction, even though in her mind she knew he would be happy, her heart was always ever more insecure than her mind. She thought about calling him, but it was kind of a problem. Both of them were in places without PHS coverage. She could get on a land line, call Midgar and get someone there who knew how to get a message through into the delicate negotiations he was in, and then he would have to call her back, on some land line that she would probably no longer be near... too much. And she didn't want to leave him some voice mail that he'd pick up later. The man would just have to wait. _She_ would just have to wait. It's not like the baby was going anywhere for awhile.

It was only nine o'clock; the clinic visit had taken almost no time at all. She needed something to occupy her hours before lunch, and then she could tell Zack. _ No, wait_, she thought, she should not tell him before Sephiroth. This was kind of maddening, in a way. She looked around again and saw the reactor. Not such a far walk, Cloud had said. She could nip up there, talk to some people, and take the employee lunch shuttle back into town and still make their lunch.

When she finally reached the reactor Tessa couldn't believe how big it was. What she had been looking at from town was apparently just a portion of the facility that jutted out from behind a hillside. While it took less than half an hour to walk up to the thing, it probably would have taken another half an hour just to walk across it. A small train moved people around inside, and it must have employed almost the entire town of Nibelheim. After showing her ShinRa badge at the gate, she clipped it to her collar and took the train to the central control building.

During the ride she looked out the window of the train. There was quite a bit of empy ground between the outer ring and the main building at its center, all of it desolate and dead looking, like the dirt of a prison yard. Poisoned, she supposed. The ninety foot towers belched greenish plumes into the air that winds carried farther into the mountain chain. She thought about the venomous vapor, sliding along and sickening plants and wildlife as it went. She looked away from the window.

The main building was no more inviting than the grounds. Its gray concrete walls blended in with the barren earth, it's dim, gray innards tomb like. There was no lobby or reception area in the foyer; this was not a facility made for visitors. Tessa looked around for any indication where the director's office might be, but the design of the place was no help. The whole space felt entirely non-intuitive to her. Nothing like a lab, or hospital, or even an office building. Something brushed at the edge of her hearing, a voice, a whisper. Or maybe not, maybe just an echo, the rub of her own feet against the concrete the floor.

"Excuse me," she said, stopping a middle aged worker who was just heading out the door. "I'm here from Midgar, I need to speak to the director or an associate, can you point me in the right direction?"

The man looked at her badge; it said MIDGAR MAIN alright in big letters at the bottom. That couldn't be good news. And the badge was blue, blue meant Research branch. That boded worse.

"Straight down this hall and then to your left, ma'am," he directed, and decided to take the rest of the day off.

She walked down the hallway, passing precious few people for the size of the place. But she could hear people. She was accustomed to her hyper acute hearing picking up voices in other rooms, behind doors. But she hadn't passed anyplace that looked likely to house these unseen speakers, and normally the voices sounded clear but far away, not muddled and close. Maybe she was processing extra mako for the fetus and her sensitivity had increased, or just changed in some way. She really should check her level.

The director Poul Retzer turned out to be a surprisingly congenial man. Tessa had got the impression from Zack that reactor directors were universally assholes. This one had looked at her suspiciously at first, resentment plain in his pale blue eyes, but when she told him she was primarily concerned with cleaning out ShinRa Mansion he relaxed, his narrow, lined face wearing an easy smile.

"What I'm looking for is some leftover scientific material, samples, anything that might be related to medical research. Anything you might send to a medical lab?" she asked

Retzer thought. "I can't think of anything specific we have like that. We send mako, raw and at various stages of processing to different labs. Materia, that kind of thing."

"This would be something organic. Twenty-five years ago there was quite a bit of this material going from here to ShinRa Mansion."

"Well, miss, twenty-five years is a long time. Only been here fifteen myself. Let's check with personnel, see if we can find someone from that era still working here."

She smiled at him, noticing he gave her the title "miss". Somehow she didn't mind it from him, though. He didn't seem insulting, just old fashioned.

_woums boo ab tolin _Tessa listened harder as followed the director down the hall. _whir oo an dolen _Why was it so hard to hear? It was like she was listening through water. Maybe the speakers were eating donuts. She continued to look for them, but not wanting to rubberneck into every room they passed she contented with listening. The phrase came again. _whirms oo av storin_. 'Worms who have stolen', she decided. Great. Very enlightening.

The plump, blond lady in charge of the personnel records was helpful, but the exercise was as frustrating as at the hospital.

"You don't have anyone with twenty-five years in? But you have four folks with twenty-three, another two with twenty-two?" Tessa looked at the chart in amazement. There were no odd gaps up until the recent hires. "The reactor has been in operation for thirty-five years, and you're the biggest employer in a small town. How does that happen? Is there some sort of twenty-three year cap on employment?"

"Oh no, the standard retirement age is fifty-eight," said the plump blonde, "so if you start as a young person you could work forty years. It's just that when they re-modeled they transferred the workers to other reactors."

"And they never came back?" Tessa marveled that nobody thought that was odd. And she highly doubted this place had ever received 'remodeling'. At least not in the conventional sense. An upgrade maybe, but what else?

_ot iz hours_ there was that donut eater again. _utt iz ours_ 'what is ours', well, better than that that bit about the worms.

"Your building is so confusing, is this all office space in here?" She asked. That donut eater had to be somewhere.

"It's a regular maze to be sure," Retzer said. "Would you like a quick tour?"

"Oh, I'd love that," she said, giving him one of the smiles that had enchanted Sephiroth so, her overly bright aqua eyes holding the director in place while he struggled to regain control of his legs.

They went through the bulk of the building, and voice that had now begun to intrigue Tessa never got any louder. Or softer for that matter. _drumeye crimson_, nope, she thought, try that again. s_rum my brizzon _ 'from my prison?' maybe. Interesting at least.

_gum I wild _ This one came with something else. A feeling. It was, beckoning... _cumeye cheye_... 'come my child'. Tessa considered. She was with child. Good grief, was she starting to hallucinate now due her condition? Crap. Well, if she was hearing voices in her head she would just have to work around it. She picked out several more phrases, what she thought might have been 'they are not' (or maybe it was 'they are hot'), 'reclaim what is ours', 'the planet from us'.

The mental task of deciphering these strange bits did not distract Tessa enough for her to see that none of the areas they visited held anything of interest to her. And she could vaguely account for the twists and turns in the building and it seemed like they had gone all around the thing but not the center.

"What's in the middle?" she asked

"Oh, the processing core. All the towers feed with underground pipes into the processing pool. The refined mako comes out the top."

"I'd like to go in there." she said.

The lanky director scratched his head, "OK, but we'll have to suit up. It's a little dangerous in there, there's mako vapor and some spray. Don't want to get any on ourselves."

She smiled at him, and he looked at her eyes again. He knew what that was, mako exposure. He thought that ShinRa only exposed men to the degree that their eyes shone. Soldiers. She worked in a lab and maybe that accounted for the exposure. But he was ignorant as to whether it mattered if these types got a little mako on their skin or not. But either way it would tend to stain her blouse.

"You know what," she said, looking at her watch, "Actually I need to get back to town and meet my team for lunch. We'll come back later, if that's alright?"

"Sure," he said, certain he had no choice in the matter. The Midgar team, they had arrived two days ago. "Is... General Sephiroth with you? We heard he was coming." Retzer felt a bit foolish for asking, but still, he would like to see the big General, at least once. He was supposed to be quite a sight.

She smiled, amused by Sephiroth's obvious popularity. "No, he couldn't make it. I have a couple of Soldiers and a couple of Turks with me." She thought he paled after that last bit. She put her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. "Don't worry, they're housebroken." _Mostly_, she added silently.

He nodded, unconvinced.

The inside-her-head-donut-eating-voice, or whatever it was, increased its frequency as she was leaving. Now she was sure there emotions associated with it. But not as if they were her emotions that she was feeling. It was more like she was observing the emotional display of someone quite detached from her. A stage performer.

_TOY ZEN! EAT ME!_ hmmm. Maybe not a donut eater. Maybe donuts have learned to talk _DEZNOY TEM! LEASE ME! _ Ah, destroy them, release me. Tessa ignored the voice. Now the disembodied emotion seemed confused, frustrated.

_but you are a god_ it came in a whimper. Tessa stood up suddenly from her seat on the train, attracting quite a few stairs from the outgoing lunch crowd. That one was clear, quite suddenly clear. And all too familiar. Zack had told her about the rogue Genesis, the other like Sephiroth who went crazy thinking he was a god. And Sephiroth had voiced some susceptibility to the same. Was she having the same problem now that she had those same odd cells in her body in the form of Sephiroth's child? Was this what it was like inside his head? Did he hear voices?

And abruptly the world stopped. The train stopped, the voices stopped, and she moved dazedly with the herd into the shuttle for town.


	31. Lunch and Clocktower

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

"Hey, it's been really great catching up. Call me if you get a chance, OK?" Tifa had Cloud in a death grip of a hug, Cloud looked like he might be suffocating, but blissfully so.

"And it was nice to meet you," she put out her hand towards Zack, who accepted the cordial handshake. But something small pricked his palm as he did so. A small piece of paper. He knew what that would be. A phone number. Zack slipped it surreptitiously into his pocket, determined to neither use it nor let Cloud know.

After Tifa walked away Cloud looked at him squarely. "I saw that." Cloud said.

"Cloud, I didn't... I just..."

"I know. You're just you. And I'm just me."

"Hey, it's not like that. It's just that I'm the outsider, you know the Soldier passing through town. Among girls it's some sort of feather in their cap if they can get that guy to take them out. It doesn't mean anything to them. I know. I've had a lot of dates of that kind. She clearly has way more connection and feeling for you."

"Give it to me," Cloud said suddenly, holding out his hand.

"What? Oh," Zack dug the phone number out of his pocket and dropped it into Cloud's palm. "I wasn't going to use it."

Cloud gave a doubtful grunt and balled the paper into his fist. "I wouldn't let you touch her with a ten foot pole. Besides, she's way too young for you."

Zack bit back his retort, deciding it was probably better just to take the abuse even though he hadn't done anything. This time, anyways.

"NICE." Reno came strolling up, looking after the direction Tifa had disappeared and making a rude boob grabbing gesture in front of his chest. "You two made good use of your morning. Wher'd you find-."

"Shut-up, Reno," Cloud and Zack said simultaneously.

Reno merely raised his eyebrows and found an empty table for them. "Crabby Soldiers," he muttered to himself.

Zack's ill humor was short lived in the face of lunch even though he had gorged himself at breakfast. It took almost nothing for Zack to work up an appetite. He hoped Tessa would show up soon, breakfast had not been her friend lately and he guessed she needed to be eating right now.

"Hey guys," Tessa pulled up a chair and sat down.

"So," Rude said, from behind his menu. "Are you pregnant?"

Tessa stared at him. She looked around the table.

"We take that as a yes. Congratulations, doll," Reno said, lighting up. "And don't look so surprised, just because we're men doesn't mean we're oblivious idiots."

Tessa snatched the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it viciously into the ashtray. "No smoking around the baby!"

Reno looked to Zack, maybe hoping for some help but the Soldier only shrugged at him. Zack leaned close to Tessa.

"Little Sephiroths, little green eyed, fire launching, ass-kicking Sephiroths!"

"Don't act so pleased, Zack, you're going to have to help, you know."

Zack leaned back in his chair, grinning. "Good," he said.

"I went up to the reactor," she said, feeling suddenly a little self conscious and wanting to change the subject.

Zack lost his happy expression. "Please don't do that on your own, shit happens at reactors sometimes. I thought you were just staying in town."

"I had planned to, but it turned out I had some time and didn't know where you guys had gone. What'd you do, anyway?"

"Turks slept," Zack said, "Cloud and I had breakfast with his family. Did you find anything at the reactor?"

"Family?" Tessa said, looking at Cloud.

"Uh, yeah, do I have to repeat this again? I'm _from_ Nibelheim."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," Tessa said absently, her bright aqua eyes staring off at nothing. "Your family lives here, then."

"That's usually what happens when you're from a place," Cloud said carefully. Had he said something confusing? What could be confusing about that? Maybe Reno was right about Mako exposure addling the brain.

Their conversation was stopped by the clock tower at the edge of the square striking noon. Tessa stared at its heavy brick walls while it pealed away twelve tolls in a sonorous voice. The second hand was constructed of three, ornate lobes.

"What do you think of that clock tower, Zack?" She asked.

Zack gave a casual look to the tower, then jerked his head back and stared.

"I'm thinking that won't burn." He turned his attention to Cloud, who was looking a bit lost.

"Hey Cloud," he said, pulling his room key from a pocket. "I left my PHS charging up in my room, will you go get it?"

"You know there's no coverage here, right?"

"I know. But they have a walkie-talkie mode. We might find that handy."

"Yes sir," Cloud said, still confused.

"OK, Zacko, why'd you send the kid off? What happened to all that 'we're a team' shit you profess to believe in?" Reno asked. Both Turks were leaning forward now, their attention having sharpened as soon as the conversation became strange. Strange conversations always were hiding something. Zack ignored him.

"You're not thinking this is it? Nibelheim is the town?"

"The clocks right, and Cloud said something about family in the dream."

"Hey!" Reno snapped his fingers between the two of them. "Turks over here being uninformed! Uninformed Turks are twitchy Turks. I think you better tell us everything, not half the story like we got in the lab yesterday."

The told them everything, about the J project soldiers and their prophetic dreams and how they sometimes were able to sidestep their fate, the connection to these Soldiers and Sephiroth's odd genes, and lastly about Sephiroth's dream of fire and massacre. How they were here trying to understand his past in hopes of helping him sidestep his fate as well.

The Turks took a moment to digest.

"So that's why you sent the kid away, Zack? So he doesn't become contaminated with the precog info and sidestep what he's supposed to do? Finish Sephiroth in case he goes ballistic?" Reno asked.

Zack didn't answer.

"Zack, is that true?" Tessa asked.

"General's orders," he said.

Tessa put her hands to her mouth, then took them away and set her jaw. "Well, let's just make sure it doesn't get to that."

"In the dream he does these things why? Because he thinks he's a god?" Rude asked.

"Yeah," Zack said, "something like 'I'm a god, I'm going to take back the planet.'"

"Come, my child, they are naught but worms who have stolen the planet from us. You are a god. Destroy them, release me from my prison, and we shall reclaim what is ours." Tessa said.

Zack looked at her. "He didn't tell me that part."

"Nor me. Something strange happened to me earlier." Tessa recounted the voices she heard while at the reactor.

"I thought I was having some weird mako induced auditory hallucination associated with the pregnancy. But I had the strangest sensations also, I could feel emotions with the voice. For instance, I got the distinct impression that the voice was frustrated and confused as to why I wasn't doing its bidding. But I had no impulse to follow it.

Maybe I was relatively unaffected because I wasn't its real target. I'm maybe just an outside listener. I think that Jenova creature is still alive, somewhere in that reactor, and that weird communication it has between its own cells is reaching out and putting hooks into its derivatives. I think she was talking to the baby, carrier of Jenova's cells passed down from Sephiroth."

"And in the same way she will put her hooks into Sephiroth? If he just gets too close?" Zack asked

Tessa shook her head, unsure. "Maybe."

"Well that was a close one then," Zack said. "Good thing he didn't come. So is that it then? Have we sidestepped? Just keep him out of Nibelheim?"

"We have no way of knowing. We don't know what the range of this thing is or if it's changeable. Clearly in the dream he was wreaking havoc in town whereas I could no longer hear when I reached the reactor's outer ring. Or maybe it's been asleep all this time and I just went over there and woke it up. Maybe it's reaching all the way to Wutai as we speak."

"We gotta kill this thing," Rude said.

"We have to find it first. The reactor people claimed to have no idea of anything like a lab or scientific materials being there."

"You don't have some kind of hot/cold feedback with these voices?"

"No," Tessa said, "It was purely an on/off thing."

"That reactor is _huge_," Reno said. "We'll never find it in there unless we have some idea where to look."

"You said Vincent Valentine was a Turk assigned to this project. Was he any good?" " Rude asked.

"His file had some sort of rating number on there, P-rate? Ninety-seven?"

"That's Performance rating, and ninety-seven is almost unheard of! Maybe they used to rate higher. I've only got a sixty-five." Reno said.

"That's because you keep getting points taken off for behavior," Rude said.

"OK, fine, but you've only got a what, eighty-three?"

"That's because I keep getting points taken off for your behavior."

"Well, whatever, ninety-seven, that's like, hell, Tseng. Guaranteed this guy knows where to look, if this Jenova bitch is still in the same place."

Tessa looked over at Zack. "We have to get him up."

"Zack, I looked all over your room, your PHS isn't in there," Cloud sat back down in his chair.

"Oh, Gaia, I had it all along. Sorry Spike."

Cloud looked at his superior, wondering if some days the man's brains weren't entirely attached. He reclaimed his seat which had his lunch already in front of it, and looked from one to the next of his companions. He seemed to have returned from gophering for Zack into the middle of a deadly serious and excited conversation. And there was something else, too. Fear, or at maybe anxiety. Tessa at least looked afraid. He wanted to ask what was going on but got the distinct impression that interruptions would not be welcomed.

"C'mon," Reno said, "Something's got to kill it, everything dies."

"The Lifestream doesn't die," Tessa said, "and that's more what this it's like, except she has an incompatible energy signature. And more aggressive than the energy in our Lifestream; tougher too. Her energy tends to mutate the signature from mako to its own pattern."

"If those environmental nuts are right, the Lifestream can die," Rude said, "the reactors are killing it."

Tessa scanned through the volumes she had read in her room last night. One of her gifts from her brush with the Lifestream was speed reading. She could go through a twenty-six volume encyclopedia in a few hours. Problem was she didn't process at the same speed as she stored, and sometimes she had to chew on the information for days afterwards. She had read about two encyclopedia's worth of data from yesterday. She searched her mind for references to squelching of energy signatures. She bypassed all the old Cetra records, the Cetra hadn't learned how to kill Jenova, that's why they had buried her in the frozen northern wastelands. Maybe they could freeze her. Not as good as killing her. She scanned ahead, the scan always making her think of a whirring sound in her head. Here, maybe...

"The pollution from the reactors is thought to be hazardous because it is likewise a more aggressive energy, it mutates lifeforce energy patterns to its own. It's basically tainted or corrupt mako. The planet has ways of cleaning up corrupted mako, but it's slow so we may possibly be overrunning its ability to do so. There were some reject data points where samples from Jenova were being treated with mako, but it was insufficiently pure and ruined the samples."

"You mean the corrupt mako killed it," Reno said.

"Essentially. I expect there was no study on how to kill Jenova cells directly because Hojo was trying to preserve the damn thing. It's clear from his notes he thought it a superior life energy."

"That's why he made Sephiroth out of it," Cloud said.

All four of the older ShinRa employees turned to look at Cloud, making him feel a little like an antelope that wandered into the tiger's pen. He fidgeted a bit and Tessa smiled at him. There was nothing like distaste or fear in the kid's voice, it was clear he idolized Sephiroth. He also had not been as asleep as he had appeared yesterday in the lab when they had discussed Sephiroth's connections to the Jenova project.

"Not made out of it. Hojo fused him with a small amount of it."

"And that's why he's different?" Cloud asked.

"Yeah, hon, that's why."

"Well, OK," Zack said, "We have a whole reactor full of bad mako. Can't we just soak her in it and see if she... dissolves or something?"

Tessa mulled it over. It was maybe worth a try. They had the environmental suits needed at the reactor to handle both the tainted mako and the Jenova material. Hojo's people had been taking samples from it on a regular basis, they could do the same.

"We'll need to test a small batch first," she said, "If it works we'll need to understand what kind of waste is created, figure out how to handle that waste... Gaia what a mess. I'll need some stuff from the laboratory to run the test. And I'll try to convince Valentine to help us out in finding her." She turned and looked at the Turks. "Can you two head over to the reactor and start looking? You might get lucky. Cloud, is there anybody in town who might know something about this Jenova thing at the reactor? Anybody who might have been in the reactor twenty-five years ago?"

"Maybe," Cloud said. "There's a few people here I could ask."

"Good," She said. "Zack, I guess you're with me."

**A/N: I know it's well established that when you have a female character puking in the morning that's almost equivilant to stating that she's pregnant. It's a classic. When my reviewer looked at those sections she said "Anyone who doesn't know she's pregnant would have to be an oblivious idiot" and I thought yeah, that's right, and not just readers but the characters as well. So I had them all pretty much be in the know before she announced it. Thanks Meg**.

**Oh, and I particularly enjoyed Cloud showing a bit of Spine over Tifa and demanding Zack hand over her phone number :)**


	32. Awaken

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here"What do I care? Let him burn Nibelheim to the ground if he wishes."

**A/N: I apologize for any for editing problems in recent chapters. I'm traveling and just trying to type on the computers available is making me feel like I have bugs in my brain.**

"Let him burn Nibelheim to the ground if that's what he wants. I couldn't care less."

There was a loud slam as Vincent Valentine jerked the lid back down, shutting him off from view, and a second bang as Zack brought his hand down hard on the top of the coffin lid.

"You can't just lay in there forever! You can't just not give a damn about what happens!" Zack was piqued to a level he rarely experienced. Not even Sephiroth had frustrated him into such a state, although it was clear now where the General's stubborn streak came from.

"Let him be for awhile Zack," Tessa said. They had tried for an hour to convince Vincent Valentine to help them, but could barely get him to speak let alone get up. They told him what they knew of the Jenova experiments, and Tessa was sure she saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. They explained the dream, the threat Jenova posed to Sephiroth and to others through Sephiroth. He had actually moved his head a little at the mention of Tessa being pregnant, but had returned to his disconnected state immediately after. She thought they had him once, when he actually asked a question regarding the location of Hojo, speaking the scientist's name with venomous hatred. They happily informed him that Sephiroth had killed the bastard, but instead of having the intended effect he seemed oddly put out by it.

"Alright," Zack said, pulling his hands through his already wild hair. "But I've half a mind to slice him out of there with the Buster and drag his ass down to the reactor."

Tessa turned her attention to gathering the test apparatus and the chemicals she needed. She wondered that the lab was still so well equipped. Maybe they had planned on coming back, or maybe the lab wasn't entirely abandoned. The thought made her shudder. She found a foam lined case with a handle to make a kit out of all her supplies, and while she packed the walkie-talkie mode on their PHSs went off.

"Zack, are you there?" Reno's voice was urgent, "We've got multiple large monster attacks just outside of the reactor. Some appear to be heading towards town! We need you ass over here!" Gunfire and shouts could be heard in the background.

"I got you Reno, hang in there, be there in a few minutes." Zack looked over at Tessa.

"I'll be fine, go!" She said with a small wave of her hand.

Zack took off at a full sprint, and quite suddenly Tessa was in the lab alone. Well, she and the crabby corpse. She swore softly to herself. This was all they needed, monster attack. A stab of anxiety flipped her stomach and she pushed it aside, irritated. Zack and the others would be fine. This is what they did. But that feeling of time running out was becoming ever more pervasive, and she was getting a little sick of the number of obstacles this job kept presenting.

"Vincent Valentine!" She gave the top of the coffin a hard thump on her way out. "I know you can hear me! I don't know if you've got this through your thick skull or not, but if we don't destroy this Jenova creature I think your son is going to die! And I think he's going to take a hell of a lot of people with him! This is NEVER what he wanted! He didn't choose to be the thing Hojo made him! Do you hear me? If Sephiroth falls to the will of this creature everything he suffered and fought for in his life is worthless! Hojo wins! I won't have him used as some puppet by this Jenova thing!" Tessa choked on her words, tears of frustration and acute anxiety in her eyes. Damn, now she was getting emotionally out of control. Maybe hormones, she thought, but remembered Zack also yelled at the coffin. Maybe Vincent Valentine had a gift for driving people insane. She sniffled to keep her nose from running.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to go fight." Tessa turned and stomped away.

Vincent Valentine mulled over what Tessa had said, but really only one piece caught his attention. The word fight. Something sickening roiled around inside of him like a nest of excited snakes. He forced his brain to consider the word instead. Fight. Did she mean that literally or figuratively? Well, probably both, as it was unlikely that Jenova would be undefended. But this girl, fight? Could she even fight? Trying to get to Jenova she would probably come up against Hojo's special brand of monsters, spewing tainted mako over all they touched. He thought of Lucrecia, carrying his child unbeknownst to him, exposed to Gaia knew what in the name of greed and science. A small growl came from his throat. It surprised him; he didn't remember ever actually _growling _before.

"Fight my ass," his lips mouthed wordlessly. Not in her condition she wasn't.

Half way up the stairs Tessa felt something cold grab her arm. She screamed and dropped the kit, but a pale hand flashed out and caught it before it hit the ground. Then she was being dragged at an absurd pace up the stairs, stumbling behind the red, moth eaten shroud that her startled mind had to admit was Vincent Valentine. Even with her sensitive ears she hadn't heard him come up the stairs, and when they came through the upper door she could see what gripped her arm wasn't a hand at all. It was some sort of claw, a metal claw, and it was biting into her wrist and causing several trickles of blood to run into the creases of her palm. Fearful she jerked backwards, but it made no impact on their progress. He only pulled her off her feet, forcing her to scramble to get them back under her again. She tried again as they went through a doorway, planting one foot against the door frame and pulling back as hard as she could. She knew she was strong- she had wrestled with Zack a few times, pushing and pulling on him to see what she could do, and she could off-balance him if she was lucky. This time she did stop their progress and caused Valentine to turn and look at her, eyes ablaze with red fire. She found them far more frightening now that he was up and active than they had been while he lay in the coffin box.

"Stop struggling!" he hissed, a low, guttural, and terrifying sound. He gave her arm a violent jerk that made her shoulder pop and dug grooves along her wrist where the metal claw gripped her. She fell and was for a few paces dragged along the floor before he stopped, hoisted her like a doll into the air until her toes just brushed the floor, then resumed their hurried march. This time she followed, too panicked to do anything else. She wanted Zack, where was he? She couldn't think. Where was this maniac taking her? What was he going to do with her?

He dragged her into one of the downstairs rooms, one they hadn't bothered much with since finding the lab. Finally he let go of her arm and set the kit on the floor beside her odd care. Tessa considered grabbing it and running, but thought she probably wouldn't get far. The guy was probably weirdly fast. Like Zack. Or maybe worse. Maybe like Sephiroth. And there was something else. They still needed him or they might not find the Jenova creature, and if they didn't find it Sephiroth, and her child, would never be safe.

Vincent walked over to one wall covered with ornate wooden panels and ran his fingers along the edges. One flipped open, revealing some sort of locking mechanism.

"I've got a Turk who can open those things," she said timidly. If he heard her he gave no indication, instead he reached forward and moved the mechanisms until a rather large door popped open. Apparently here was a Turk who could open these things. Several small whirring objects flew out of the new opening, most passing by Vincent without touching him but two he caught, his hand darting out so fast that Tessa was at first unsure what he had done. The ones that had flown past him lodged into the wall and immediately started turning the wallpaper black. He laid the two he had caught on the floor behind him with that same odd gentleness, then cautiously pushed the door farther open with one foot. Tessa noticed for the first time his feet were bare.

Lights flicked on inside a large room that reminded Tessa of the storage area in a morgue. Every wall covered with what looked like large stainless steel drawers, with a long bench occupying the center of the room. Valentine scanned the drawers and pulled open a few, dropping items from within them onto the bench. Black leather folded things, clothes Tessa realized, similar to the stuff Sephiroth preferred. She was aware that some of these garments had special combat properties developed by ShinRa, maybe this was some sort of storage area for experimental combat clothing.

Vincent removed the red shroud and laid it on the bench, leaving himself completely nude under the harsh lights. Tessa abruptly turned her back to allow him to dress. Of course what did she expect? He had been wrapped up and laid in a coffin after... after what? She had seen in that unintentional glance the crisscrossing of uncountable scars on his torso. He'd been on Hojo's table all right. Repeatedly by the looks of him. Out of all the 'subjects' she'd seen from Hojo's labs, only Sephiroth lacked the telltale scars, presumably because of his inherent aggressive healing. Or perhaps Hojo had taken care with him that he had not with others. Sephiroth was after all walking around, unlike all the others she'd pulled off of shelves. Until this one.

She heard another drawer pull open and turned back to watch him. Vincent seemed to have forgotten she was there and was rummaging through two more drawers before finding what he was looking for. Boots. These had bright gold colored metallic tops. He fingered the rather nasty looking pointed toes which seemed to please him. Tessa could only imagine they were for impaling a target while kicking and swallowed reflexively. Vincent shoved his feet, sans socks, into the menacing footware and then stood, unmoving for a moment, looking oddly lost. Then he scooped up the shroud and replaced it on his shoulders. She noticed now that it actually had clasps and functioned as a cloak, but wondered why he would want to keep it. Maybe having it wrapped around his person for twenty-five years endeared it to him, like a child with a blanky. Or maybe it had some value, maybe the fabric was engineered as well.

Vincent then abruptly strode out of the room, forcing Tessa to jump out of the way or have her toes stepped on by the evil looking pointy boots. Out in the main room he went directly to another wall and pulled at the corner of the wood paneling. This section folded off to the side like a wall sized accordion, leaving a large steel door behind it that looked like it needed a key. Of all the things she had seen Reno open, doors with mechanical locks seemed to give him the most trouble. None of these locks were of the ordinary type like on people's houses or commercial buildings. They were always some special, ShinRa non-pickable things. She remembered the key they had hunted for and finally found yesterday, and the large, ugly, frightening result. The body of that thing was still shut up and stinking up the room in inhabited (they had tried, rather comically, to shove it back into the tiny safe it came from, hoping for some magical compression, but now dead it refused to go.) She was wondered if Vincent really needed what was behind that door when a blue sphere of light enveloped him and another largish hideous beast appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Not as big as that last one, thank Gaia, but kind of similar colored, red and purplish. This one definitely had fur, and was between her and Vincent. She couldn't see Vincent at all for the thing's bulk, only the back of the beast as it howled and flailed its huge, thick claws.

Tessa grabbed the weapon she had been given after complaining of being unarmed after the last episode. It was an electromag rod from Reno that he had packed as a spare, deemed a suitable defensive weapon for her as she wouldn't be able to accidentally shoot or slice up a teammate during an action. Just hold the button down and jab the active end into the beastie and it should drop unconscious. Or at least not like you and (hopefully) go away. But using it as an offensive weapon was another matter altogether. She would have to move _towards_ the beastie, and at the moment her feet were rooted to the floor in fear.

Tessa gritted her teeth and forced one foot to step forward. _C'mon, just one more step, _she told herself. But then there was loud sound of metal tearing and twisting and the door came free. The great purple beast flung the ruined metal door off to the side. Then there was another flash of light and Vincent Valentine stood in its place, completely motionless, in that same posture of being lost. Tessa crept near him and looked at the side of his face. Between the hair, the headdress, and the cowl from the cloak she could see precious little of the face, but she could see his eyes. They were completely blank. Even Sephiroth with his controlled facial expression at least looked like he was in there somewhere. This guy looked completely vacant. Tessa wondering briefly if he was alive.

"Vincent?" She said cautiously. No response. She was about to try again when he broke out of the trance, or whatever it was, and started scanning the display in front of him. It was full of guns. Big guns, weird guns, and lower shelves loaded with little guns.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low and gritty with disuse. "I don't know what that was."

Tessa stared at him, struggling to understand. So he had transformed into... that thing? What had Hojo done to him? How had Hojo done that too him?

While part of Vincent's brain examined, hefted, and considered weaponry another portion considered what had just happened. It wasn't entirely truthful that he didn't know what that thing was. He didn't understand it, but he knew it. Twenty-five years lying with it inside of him, some part of him knew it well. Chafed under it, hated it, and fought with it. Knew it well enough to use it at any rate, and it had proved handy.

One of the larger guns grabbed his attention, a monstrous three barreled weapon that he remembered under development, before... The gun was designed for two handed use, one on the handle grip and the other supporting the long barrels, but he found he could easily aim it single handed. Maybe it had a gravity floater in it, he thought. He found its holster and strapped it to his right thigh, then located ammunition for it. The ammunition felt oddly light as well, and he had to examine a piece to make sure the lead was actually in it. He pinched the jacketed bullet and it came free from the casing. Both looked normal, but they shouldn't have come apart like that. Then he squeezed the brass casing between thumb and forefinger and crushed it like a piece of paper, oozing gunpowder out onto his fingers. He frowned at his hand. This was new. He remembered gripping the girl pretty hard as he dragged her here. Vincent reached over and gingerly lifted her left hand. The wrist had several large gouges and her hand was caked in blood. He drew his breath in sharply.

"It'll heal," she said, pulling her hand back and pretending the same bravado she'd seen in Soldiers. They always said that, no matter what got sliced or broken. They always said it with a smile, but that part at least was more than she could muster.

Vincent went back to loading up, ammo, magazines, and smaller guns into various pockets on his incredibly pocket filled outfit. Tessa marveled at the amount of gear that disappeared into his clothing. There apparently wasn't an inch on him that didn't have a pocket of some kind, most of them close fitting and designed for just the type of items he was loading in them.

Then he finally turned and looked at her.

"I'm ready," he said, voice and face equal in their flatness.


	33. Leaving Wutai

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here

It took Sephiroth ten minutes to denude himself of his dress uniform. One by one he dropped the elaborate pieces onto his bed in his quarters at the ShinRa military base. Both epaulettes, braided gold cords that looped down from his shoulders, gold inlayed vambraces, the absence of which would be noticed if they didn't peek out from under his sleeves, a kisori with the same ornate inlay that made it stiff and uncomfortable around his waist. A gilded collar piece, pants with _stripes_ of all things down outside of the leg and bright gold shin guards atop his overly shiny boots. Gaia, he felt like a holiday ornament.

_Good thing I don't sweat, _he thought, looking at the massive pile discarded onto the bed. But he felt like he needed a shower anyway.

He had packed a set of normal clothes for evenings on the base, but now he pulled out a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, thinking he would just spend the evening in his quarters and order something to be sent up from the cafeteria for dinner.

He dialed a series of codes into the phone on his desk that allowed him to access his voicemail. He smirked to himself as he did this. In-room phone service that hooked up off site was nonstandard, but it could be arranged. If you were the favored leader of the armed branch and the whole base hopped to attention when you touched down. But if you didn't know enough to ask for it, if you were the VP of customer relations or, say, The Rufus, you had to go to a special office to talk to Midgar. He had the same service arranged for Tseng, a simple word from him was all it took. To have anything here, actually, because here his word was law. This was a base, and all the bases were _his._ The word '_Demongod__'_ drifted through his mind. Maybe he was a god. An evil one. He laughed a little to himself as he got ready for his shower, listening to his messages on the speaker phone.

"This is Reeve Tseutsi, I need to talk with you about security for some relocations in Midgar..." he'd come back to that one.

"General," Scarlet's voice crooned, "it's time for the annual weapons review meeting. I need to know when..." Sephiroth pushed the button for delete. He'd pretend he never got that one. Weapons Review took all day and the longer he could delay a day with Scarlet the better.

"This message is for Sephiroth Romera," Sephiroth cut his eyes at the phone for being given his wife's last name, "this is the ShinRa hospital in Nibelheim, this is just to let you know your wife is visiting us here."

Sephiroth dropped the metal comb he was using to rip a snarl from his hair and let it clatter to the floor. He punched the number for replay and listened to the message again, frowning. He scanned through all of his messages, looking for something from Zack, but there was none. What did that mean, 'visiting' the hospital? Was she admitted to the hospital? Why? Why the hell hadn't Zack called? He dialed the switchboard for the Base.

"This is General Sephiroth; connect me to the med facility in Nibelheim."

"Yessir!" the operated said, and then there was silence. He waited, and waited. He could feel his body temperature coming up even though his room was relatively cool and he was down to only his boxers.

"I'm sorry sir," the operated finally said, "but every line into Nibelheim is down. I called the base at Rocket Town, and they said this happens all the time, especially lately. We can't even raise the Reactor."

Sephiroth thought about the word 'lately'. Lately there had been quite a lot of monster activity surrounding Nibelheim. He had been thinking he would have to send a team in there soon to clear it out if it continued. Maybe the beasts were just disrupting the phone lines outside of town. But even so, if the town were under attack they wouldn't be able to get word out. Sephiroth gritted his teeth. His people, his _wife_ was in there and he couldn't confirm what was going on.

"Call over to the Palace and ask for Emperor Godo for me, please."

cccccccccccc

Sephiroth strode down the hallway, dressed for action rather than diplomacy, Masamune a bright deadly streak trailing behind him. He stopped at Rufus ShinRa's door. He was leaving either way, but he considered there'd be less mess later if he actually had permission. He knocked.

"Come in," Rufus yelled over the whine of what must have been a hair dryer. Rufus was wearing only a towel, looked like he had shaved for the second time that day, and had made some finicky looking coif on top of his head. He was the vainest man Sephiroth could think of.

"What can I do for you, General?" Rufus asked, his practiced voice as smooth as his freshly shaven jaws.

"I have to leave for Nibelheim. I have a team there which includes my wife. I received a message earlier today from the hospital stating she was there, but since then all phone contact has been disrupted, quite probably due to monster activity."

"I understand your concern, General, but I need you here. Deploy a team."

"I have. The quickest possible has to be brought in of the field from Corel first; they won't get there until tomorrow morning. I can reach Nibelheim by airship tonight."

"I can't release you until we're finished here."

"Sir, you don't need me. The conference if effectively concluded. The only event tomorrow is the dinner."

"Which Godo will expect to see you at. Sephiroth, the answer is no."

Sephiroth continued to stare at Rufus, his face emotionally flat, his unnatural green eyes unblinking.

"This is just a courtesy visit, isn't it?" Rufus asked, suddenly aware of his partial nudity, of his current isolation, of his complete vulnerability in the presence of the other man.

"I'm afraid so. I am going to Nibelheim tonight. You will not be able to stop me. You may try, but it will be better for both of us if you do not."

Rufus considered possible scenarios. None of them were good. They all ended with his father returning from his sabbatical of "finding himself" to discover Rufus had completely lost control of the military at the Wutai Base of all places and booting him off as CEO. Rufus sighed.

"Any advice on what to tell Godo regarding your absence?"

"I have already spoken to the Emperor and excused myself to attend to family matters. I believe he was quite tickled to find I had acquired a ... weakness."

Rufus raised his eyebrows. Sephiroth was nothing if not full of surprises. Godo wouldn't even talk to Rufus but through his minister, and he wouldn't have guessed anything could leave the man 'tickled'. They were supposed to sign the final agreement tomorrow. It wouldn't hurt to have Godo in a good humor.

"Well, go then, if you're going," Rufus said, dismissing Sephiroth with a wave of his hand that he knew was hollow of the authority it pretended.

Sephiroth made a polite bow that was equally hollow of the subservience it promised, and left. Rufus swore under his breath and went back to teasing his hair. He squinted in the mirror, grabbed a gray strand, and yanked it out. Caused by a certain stubborn, unruly General, no doubt. And probably the first of many.


	34. Monster Attack

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: Earlier I gave Cloud a sword called a Baby Buster that split into two components, because as many of you probably realized I was confusing the Buster with the Tsurugi, Cloud's later sword from AC that comes apart into six pieces. Rats. My technical adviser didn't call me on it at the time because as she pointed out Baby Buster is a non-cannonical item and I can have it do whatever the hell I want. Anyway, we already saw Cloud split his weapon in the restaurant and he'll do it again here. But don't worry, the big Buster will not be coming apart into pieces it doesn't have.**

Cloud's head jerked towards the reactor, attracted by the unmistakable popping noise.

"What was that?" Tifa asked, a bit of vanilla ice cream on the tip of her nose. She had bumped into Cloud in the town square, after he had spent a disappointing afternoon talking to a number of people in town who didn't know anything about what went on inside the reactor or ShinRa Manor twenty five years ago. He seemed like he needed ice cream.

"Gunfire," Cloud said. Tifa hadn't heard much gunfire, but he'd heard plenty since he'd left Nibelheim. "It's coming from the reactor, our Turks are up there."

"Monsters!" Tifa exclaimed, pitched the rest of her ice cream cone into a trash barrel, and took off running. Cloud ran after her, struggling to catch up. He had forgotten how fast she was. Of course he was faster than he used to be; at least he could keep up with her now, even laden as he was.

"Oh Cloud, you don't know!" she said, as they rounded a corner and started up the winding path to the reactor, "Since you left they've been coming all the time! I think they come out of the reactor, they'll come into town and..." Her eyes became wide and she slowed.

"You stay, I'm going," he said.

"No WAY!" she said, and continued her sprint, which by now was slowed by the incline and numerous steps.

Cloud sighed, a little apprehensive about fighting alongside her. Tifa was one of... those.

Nearing the reactor they could see a slew of a wide variety of unidentifiable entities. Cloud shook his head in amazement. Every time the guys he worked with talked about monsters they were always the same types, this one poisonous, that one can fly... but like as not the stuff he came up against wasn't in the book at all. Every time he was out with Zack, that was. He wondered vaguely if Zack attracted weird monsters, and then wished desperately he was here with them.

No sooner had he finished his thought then something grabbed him by the arm and propelled him forward up the hill.

"We're on, Spike," Zack said, grinning and taking a jump that launched them both another ten feet before hitting the ground. He turned blazing green eyes behind them for a moment.

"Hi Tifa," he said, and then to Cloud, "What's she doing here?"

"You'll see," Cloud answered, concentrating on staying upright through Zack's aggressive dragging. Zack all but flung them into the first beast and Cloud barely had time to draw before they were on it, cutting it down with one stroke a piece. They took the next three this way, each on one side, Zack taking the first larger slice and then Cloud finishing. Zack grinned ear to ear in sheer joy, there was nothing like fighting in tandem with a guy you're in synch with, and Cloud followed his lead beautifully. From Cloud's perspective there was no choice. He was sure if he didn't follow Zack's motions he would step into the Turk's line of fire, or get hit by some monster unseen from the side, or Gaia knew what. He couldn't keep track of all the hazards on the battlefield yet, plus didn't have the precog and so was relying on Zack to orchestrate them both. His life depended on him reading and coordinating with the older Soldier's motions.

Then, in a momentary lull, Zack Fair became distracted. What caught his eye was a the sight of a girl launching off a tree trunk ten feet in the air and flying towards a rather largish monster and kicking it square in the head. The thing dropped like a pile of rocks and the girl, who he now realized was Cloud's friend Tifa, took after another one. So she was one of those who studied the 'secret' martial arts and could draw on the strength of the planet to fight with, like Soldier.

"Wall!" Cloud yelled, launching from one of the many pieces of materia housed in an arm piece. A large bipedal monster with ape like arms and triangular head bounced off the shield from.

"Thank-you Cloud," Zack said, and readied himself to fight when the shield gave way. Cloud felt pretty proud of himself, and more than a little inclined to show off. Recently he had learned how to launch through his own shield.

"Fire3," he said, and the fireball hit the beast square in the chest. But instead of hopping around on fire, it seemed to absorb the fire, and then promptly doubled in size.

"Uh, Cloud, remember what I said about fire?"

"Shit," Cloud said. Yeah, he remembered. Now. Somehow in the excitement he had forgotten. Forgotten to be careful about launching fire against a monster you didn't know because sometimes the beast liked it. Not only did this one get bigger, the tips of its fingers began to glow, and with an almost comical flinging of its arms it was now launching fire back at them. Fire that went right through the shield in the same way Cloud's attack had done. Zack began deflecting the fireballs with rapid swings of his sword, keeping them off Cloud and himself, but he could feel the handle getting hot.

"Cloud, I could use an Ice on my Buster," Zack yelled, and Cloud complied, effectively cooling off the blade. He launched several different shields with no luck, then in desperation threw an Ice at the monster. But the ice spell also seemed to sink in to the target, double the thing's size, and now it was also pelting them with rock hard iceballs at high velocity.

"SHIT!" Cloud said again, "Sorry Zack! Some of them can absorb Ice?" Cloud was sure he hadn't heard of that one before.

But Zack didn't answer, as it was all he could do to keep them clear, his blade a circular blur doing what their shields could not. He was getting a little sick (not to mention fatigued) of the motion. He needed to get at the thing; clearly it was a slice-and-dice sort of monster. But they were instead being beaten backwards by it. At least the alternating ice and fire balls were keeping his blade cool.

Then there was a thundering boom that Zack guessed might be a small cannon and the beast blew half apart and backward. A following boom finished it. The inexplicable noise continued and monsters dropped to their left and right, leaving Cloud and Zack with an odd moment of nothing to do.

Looking around for the source of the noise, Zack squinted at a figure drenched in red perched on the tip of a rock outcropping. Another large boom fired out from what did indeed look a little like a small cannon held out at arm's length. It made the popping from the Turk's pistols sound like insect noises.

"Do you suppose that's Valentine?" Zack asked. He certainly was picking off monsters with the cold efficiency of a Turk, but he couldn't imagine where he'd got that weapon. It was almost as long as a shotgun, but it was far too accurate. The barrel was enormous. And lumpy.

Zack heard a rustle come up from the underbrush, and four... somethings about the size of large dogs bounded out a ways to his left. They were kind of pink. Zack frowned. Were there no standard mako beasts in this town?

"Tifa!" Cloud yelled, and Zack saw the girl deliver swift kicks to two of them, she was something all right. But she had no weapon, and there was a definite disadvantage to weaponless monster fighting. One of the dogmonsters didn't stay down and the other two were still coming at her. Zack stopped himself from intercepting, seeing Cloud already on his way. Cloud could handle these easy, and he might make some points with Tifa.

Cloud had split his sword into its two components while on the run and jumped between the paths of the last two dogmonsters. He swung both blades with asymmetrical timing and placement and sliced one in nearly in half and cut the head neatly off another. Zack raised his eyebrows in appreciation; that was a pretty good move even by his standards. Tifa managed to finish off the last with several vicious, brute force blows. Zack made a mental note never to piss that girl off.

The rest was easy work after that, a tedious hour of crisscrossing the woods in front of the reactor and flushing out the stragglers. Zack coordinated the effort once he found Reno and Rude, but the Crimson figure with the small cannon didn't close with them. Zack kept his eye on him, and saw Tessa come up from behind to join him. _Definitely Valentine_, Zack decided, and figured it was just as well to keep Tessa back there. He hadn't trained her in monster hunting. They finished their work just as the last light of day cast long, diffuse shadows from a sun that had disappeared behind a mountain.

Zack had Cloud send Tifa back down to town, a task that Zack noted with satisfaction took Cloud about three times longer than it should have and left Cloud smiling and what looked like a bit of lipstick smudge on his cheek. Vincent Valentine and Tessa made their way to join the group. Up close Vincent was a kind of alarming, his face was as marble white as Sephiroth's and no less amiable and Zack found himself keeping his distance. He supposed he was no worse than Sephiroth, really, the unnerving boring-into-your-soul cold green eyes were replaced by these heated- barely-controlled-fury reds, but at least he was used to Sephiroth. He was saved from having to make verbal contact by Reno.

"Well Shiva fuck me, the corpse is up. Nice of you to join the land of the living." Reno said, a little tired, dirty, and feeling the need for nicotine.

"You a Turk?" Vincent said, his eyes sweeping from Reno's wild red head down his unkempt suit.

"Yeah, welcome brother and all that," Reno said, lighting up.

Vincent sniffed, managing to somehow make clear with barely moving any of his face that he thought ShinRa had lowered their standards. Tessa jumped in.

"Vincent, this Reno and his partner Rude," she said, and both Turks nodded. "And you remember Zack, he yelled at you earlier."

Zack nodded and winced slightly.

"And Cloud, also part of the Soldier program."

Vincent nodded at Cloud, noting his young age. _Trainee_, he decided.

"Please," Zack came forward, "Tell us you know where this Jenova thing is."

"I know where it was," Vincent said, and walked past them towards the reactor gate, not waiting to see if they followed.


	35. Arrival

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: Whew, I'm back home, so the computer situation is better, but I got behind in writing and now my buffer is pretty much chewed up. So even though I can physically stand to do my editing, I'm going to be pressed for time and the stuff is still going to be rougher than I'd like. Oh well. Life is kind of perverse that way. **

"It's here." Vincent Valentine stopped in the middle of a thin metal staircase that gently spiraled its way up and around the outside of the wall to the reactor core. But he hadn't stopped at an access hatch; his hand lay against the metal wall which was bolted together in four foot wide sections, each maybe twenty feet tall. Zack knocked on the wall which answered with a hollow clank.

"Are you sure?" Zack asked, and received a scathing look from Vincent that could blister paint.

"OK." Zack turned to the reactor director, who looked almost ill to be following such an odd party on this bizarre survey of his domain. "I guess we want this panel off."

Retzer shook his head. "We can't just go tearing our walls apart… for what?" He glared at Valentine and but when he caught the man's eyes Retzer took a step away from him, only to back directly into Rude's immovable frame.

"Remove it," Rude said, "or be _replaced_ with someone who can."

Something about the finality in Rude's voice made Retzer turn white. Tessa finally understood what spawned the fear of Turks she had been observing. Retzer clearly read 'replaced' as 'murdered' and by the look on Rude's face he was completely serious about that. In an everyday business sort of way. What in Gaia did she get involved with taking this job at ShinRa?

"Please," Tessa said, "just get some guys up here to undo the bolts."

"I can do that," Retzer said. "But each of these panels weighs… about a ton. The stair won't hold the weight."

"So let it drop to the floor," Valentine said with that same Turk finality.

cccccccccccccccc

The panel made an impressive amount of racket as it fell to the concrete floor about eighty feet below, the echo ringing for almost a second in the cavernous space. The smaller cylindrical area behind the panel was maybe a hundred meters across and held a catwalk about four feet lower than the staircase they were on. Clearly the outer stair was not the original path to the interior catwalk or they would have been better lined up, and Tessa marveled that Vincent had been able to locate it at all. Vincent jumped lightly onto the catwalk and followed it serenely to the interior.

"Nice balance that guy has considering he hasn't moved his legs in twenty-five years," Zack commented, and jumped down to follow.

Just then the director's walkie talkie went off. "Sir," a grating voice came over the small speaker, "We have radio contact from an airship that's landing in just a few minutes. General Sephiroth is on board."

Retzer made a face. He had wanted to meet the general, but given the current amount of trouble he currently had he would have like to have fewer Midgar reps in his space rather than more.

"I'll be down to the landing pad shortly," He answered, and looked at the others questioningly.

"What's he doing here?" Zack asked, and looked at Tessa. "I didn't call him, did you call him?"

"No," she said. "I guess we should have called him and told him to stay away."

Zack took a deep breath and turned to Retzer. "Get your people away from the landing pad. And away from here. And stay away from the town. Shit. Cloud, I need you."

Tessa watched as Zack took off for the landing site with Cloud in his wake, worried for Zack, even more anxious over the significance of the blond boy following him. She opened her kit of test chemicals, and pulled out a vial of something rather unique that she had discovered in the lab.

cccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth jumped out of the transport before the ramp could deploy, feeling the heels of his boots hit hard onto the concrete of the landing pad. He'd rarely been in such a fuming anger, and to top it off he had gotten a monstrous headache during the last thirty minutes of the flight. He wanted to kill Zack, or at least put some serious hurt on him. How could he let Tessa wind up in a hospital? Didn't he say clearly before he left that he expected him to look after her?

He strode up to a man at the edge of the pad, presumably from the reactor although he seemed to be leaving rather than coming up to greet the ship. He glared so hard the man visibly shrank from his presence.

"Where is the fucking transport to town I requested?" he demanded.

The man flinched. Sephiroth had no sympathy for him; his current level of patience for incompetent fools had actually dropped to less than zero.

"It's…" the man swallowed and tried again, his quivering Adam's apple jerking up and down his throat. "It's s-still at the garage area, needed petrol. We didn't know you were on your way until a few minutes ago."

Sephiroth brought one black leather gloved hand in front of him and had to clench it against his desire to grab the groveling excuse for man by the neck and shake him. The worker must have thought Sephiroth was going to strike him because he winced away from the fist and raised a hand in a weak defensive gesture.

"Which way," he growled, and thought for a moment the man might wet himself.

"Around… around the side, main building," the man pointed with one shaky finger.

Sephiroth headed in the direction indicated, making sure Masamune bumped the man in the leg as he strode past him. The yelp from the fellow brought him a small pleasure, although he thought it a pity it was only the flat of the blade. The edge would have cut through fabric and skin and made a nice gash even without any force behind it. Serve the guy right, stuttering in front of him like that. Gaia, how he hated weakness. He hated this town. Well, he had never been in this town before, but he hated all these little towns, with their quaint little attitudes, their slowness, their utter lack of organization and discipline. And what the fuck was this pain in his head? Probably something to do with the fumes from the reactor, but still, it was about the worst damn headache he'd ever had, and he'd had some doozies.

"Hey, Seph-."

Sephiroth turned to see Zack just slowing to a trot as he came out of the building. He cut his eyes at his Second, livid with him.

"Where are you going?" Zack asked, and Sephiroth noticed his tone was full of defensive caution, and something else. There was something threatening in Zack's voice and stance. Sephiroth's heart rate picked up at the perception of that threat, and his head jarred with pain at the increase in blood pressure.

"I'm going to see her," He said, teeth clenched against the pain and sheer annoyance at being questioned by his subordinate.

Zack looked at him carefully, wondering what he meant by that. He was headed towards the main building. Her? Jenova? Did he somehow know she was in there? He rather slowly drew his Buster.

"I can't let you do that, pal." Zack said, positioning himself between Sephiroth and the door to the reactor building.

And Masamune was out. Pain that he thought couldn't get any worse ratcheted up another notch. No matter, he had fought and fought well in the past under extreme pain and injury. He knew it wouldn't matter. They had a saying in Soldier –there's no pain in the heat of battle.

"Have you lost your mind, Zack?" he growled.

"Have you?" Zack tried to sound casual, but the sight of Sephiroth in front of him with live steel had jacked up his adrenaline and his words came out strained and angry. He could feel the green burn in his own eyes, and noticed with dismay Sephiroth's had a brighter glow than he'd ever seen on him.

Masamune swung so fast and with so little warning that Zack almost missed the parry, although as he deflected he could tell it wasn't truly aimed at him but rather to get him to lower his blade. With a determination he didn't feel he raised the Buster again. He had to keep Sephiroth out of the reactor, under control… something.

From Sephiroth's perspective it was clear that Zack wasn't just fucking around. He meant business. He could only think of the worst reason why Zack would be keeping him from Tessa. That he had let him too far into their lives, trusted him too much, let him spend far too much time with her and now his best friend was looking to cut Sephiroth out of the equation.

"Fool," he hissed. "Weakling," he added, something he had never before said to an opponent but it sounded right, it sounded as hostile as he felt. Then he took after Zack in earnest. Zack fought desperately, for his very life even, and although he managed to keep Masamune's edge off his flesh he couldn't make contact with his attacker, and realized with a panic that he didn't want to. And if he couldn't bring himself to lay his edge against Sephiroth he didn't have a hope to survive.

His introspection opened himself to kick perfectly aimed into his solar plexus that knocked the wind out of him. Damn, if he had been wearing the idiotic leather kisori around his midsection like Seph was always telling him he should the blow would have been partially diffused. As it was the Buster dropped momentarily out of his hand as he sprawled out on the floor. Sephiroth was over him, blade raised.

_Gaia,_ he thought, _he's actually going to do it. Make it quick, Seph._ He caught the barest glimpse of a blond tuft of hair behind Sephiroth, and in the sudden clarity of his mind and heart he realized that his last feeling in the world of the living was going to be of sadness.

And then there was a loud, hollow sounding clunk, and Sephiroth fell on top of him much like a tree trunk might. Zack looked up to see Cloud standing above them, a large red cylinder in his hands. Zack stared in disbelief, not the least of which because he was still alive.

"You hit him with a fire extinguisher, Spike?" he said stupidly

"Well what'd you expect?" Cloud asked, helping to roll Sephiroth clear and offering a hand to help Zack up. "That I'd run him through? I don't know what the hell is wrong with you two, but whatever you're fighting about, _please_, just get over it already."

Zack gave a small, almost hysterical laugh as he recovered himself enough to lean over Sephiroth's inert form. He ran his hand over the smooth silver hair on the General's head, and finding no blood he absently pushed a lock from Sephiroth's face. They probably didn't have much time, Sephiroth never stayed unconscious for more than a minute or two.

"Let's get him inside; we need to tie him up with something." Zack said.

"Uh, Zack, I just cracked our General on the back of the head for you. I'm not sure I want to be doing anything else to him."

"Trust me," Zack said, "It's for his own good."

Cloud sighed and opened the door for Zack to drag Sephiroth inside, regret and worry knotting his stomach as he watched the heels of his sworn commander and hero drag along the ground, one foot falling helplessly to the side.


	36. Sitting Out

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: This is a short chunk, probably should have been tacked on to last chapter. Blah.  
**

"You got him? Wow." Reno had arrived in the utility area just inside the east door.

"Cloud did it," Zack said, and Reno looked at the young man with new respect. Cloud looked away, miserable.

"I need to bind him with something, something non-flammable or he'll just burn it off. Wire maybe." Zack scanned his surroundings.

"No problem," Reno said, and produced two pair of manacles out of his bottomless pit of a suit jacket.

"Those will hold Soldier?" Zack asked.

"Yup"

"First class?"

"Yup"

"Sephiroth?"

"Maybe."

Zack tried hard to ignore the implications of the existence of these devices and just be grateful the Turk had them. They bound Sephiroth's wrists behind a large iron pipe that ran from floor to ceiling and shackled his ankles together, his long legs stretching out on the floor in front of him. Zack reluctantly stepped away from his unconscious commander to confer with Reno. But they didn't get much time to speak. The cold and oddly seductive sound of Sephiroth's voice made all the hair on Zack's neck stand up.

"I wouldn't have expected this of you, Zack. To betray me."

Zack swallowed what felt like dust in his throat. So he was awake already.

"Don't try to burn or bust those off, Seph. Special Turk stuff," he said. He tried to sound businesslike, but he was sure his voice shook.

Sephiroth regarded the Turk and his Second, who stood rather cozily across the room. So this was a coordinated action. He should have known the company would eventually move against him. They would take him and put him back in some lab, fill his veins with some chemical and keep him in a tube, maybe for the rest of his life. He had been a fool to let himself think he was free now that Hojo was gone.

And to top it all off his head hurt worse than before. Now there was a new pain in the back. At least he liked this pain better. He could concentrate on it and distract himself from the first. But he had trouble thinking, and thinking was what he needed since he had already tested the bonds on his wrists and damn if they weren't tough as hell. Zack was where he needed to focus his efforts.

"The phone call was a nice touch. Did you come up with that one, Zack?"

Instead of looking guilty, Zack looked confused. "What phone call?"

"The phone message from the hospital saying Tessa was there. A woman's voice, did you hire a local for that job?"

Zack still looked confused. Too bad, Sephiroth thought, probably all Turk doing so no way to push Zack's guilt buttons with that one. Odd thing was that Reno also looked confused.

"Seph," Zack started slowly, "where were you heading?"

Now it was Sephiroth's turn to be confused. But lacking any other ideas he bit. "To the hospital, where did you think I was heading?"

Something flooded over Zack's face that Sephiroth couldn't read. The young Soldier let out a long breath that he hadn't known he was holding.

"To the middle of the reactor to reunite with the alien creature that donated your bizarre DNA and might be talking to you inside your head telling you to burn the down the town."

Zack grimaced at the absurd sound of it all and then looked sheepishly at his commander. Sephiroth stared back at him, the wave of relief releasing the tightness in his chest. Zack had not betrayed him. Zack thought they were in the dream sequence. When he considered carefully it was ridiculous to suspect Zack in the first place; his ire and headache must have been muddling his thoughts. But Sephiroth hadn't had any indication or warning that they were following the dream, and he should probably still punish his Second for idiotically opposing him with a live weapon and then trussing him up like an animal. And the Turk too. But he needed to get free first.

"Zachary, untie me," he said evenly.

But Zack was distracted, still puzzling over something. "Why would the hospital call you? OH! Because she was in there for the pregnancy test."

"Pregnancy… test?" Sephiroth asked.

Zack knelt and turned his violet eyes to him, now smiling a little, "Yeah, you're going to be a daddy."

A stab of excited joy filled Sephiroth, and then was suddenly squelched by something ugly and negative. Fear. Anger. Jealousy of all things. But that just wasn't right; he wanted children, didn't he? _Nerves_ he thought, and pushed the negative feelings hard aside and was relieved to find the joy still under it. He smiled a little.

"Untie me Zack, I assure you I have no notion to be burning Nibelheim to the ground."

But now Zack was looking at him with intense concern and concentration. "What were you just mouthing?"

"What?"

"Your lips were moving just now."

"Because I was _talking_."

Zack shook his head. At that moment Tessa walked in. Sephiroth's heart jumped, then those negative feelings hit him again. He pushed them aside _again_. Damn it he would get this fear of fatherhood under control.

"Baby?" he said. She smiled, and nodded.

"Baby."

He smiled at her, but she was giving him the same look as Zack had. They were both giving him the look.

"What?" he demanded. They ignored him.

"Do you remember him ever doing that before?" she said softly, apparently to Zack. Zack shook his head.

"I don't think he knows he's doing it," he said.

Then Tessa bent forward until her cheek lay against Sephiroth's and her lips were near his ear. She stroked his face, a touch so soft and affectionate that he leaned into a bit despite the infuriating circumstances. Her cool fingers were so soothing, and his head hurt so much.

"I love you with all my heart," she said, "But you're sitting this one out."

Then he felt a sharp prick to the muscles on the side of his neck and when she pulled her hand away he could see the empty syringe. He struggled wildly against his bonds even as his vision began to blur.

"Bitch!" he snarled, "What did I do, marry fucking Hojo?" Then his breathing became labored as his head fell forward.

"He didn't mean that," Zack said gently.

"Oh yes he did," Tessa said, her smile cold and hard. "And he's right. I found this shit in Hojo's lab and I just pumped him full of it. It's a compound designed specifically to control him."

Zack looked away, unable to think of something to counter with. He looked over to Sephiroth, head down, face obscured by the curtain of silver.

"We can't leave him here like this," he said. "He's vulnerable."

"What has he ever been vulnerable to?" Reno asked, exasperated. "He's practically goddam indestructible! What, are you afraid somebody's going to come along and molest him?"

Zack looked at him stubbornly.

"OK, OK, there should be a locked and armored room for materia storage. We could stick him in there. At least nobody else could get at him. Tessa, how long is that stuff good for? And do you have more?"

"It should be twelve hours, but I can't be sure. I probably have enough for one more shot."

"So we give him, what, four hours just to be safe, then come back and check on him."


	37. Ask Me No Questions

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: Sabith asked after the last chapter, 'where is Cloud?' Good point, thanks. Of course I know in my head where everyone is all the time, but since I assume y'all are not mind readers it's my job to remember to write that down. Cloud, unsure of what he'd gotten himself into, is making himself scarce. I attempt to clarify a bit here, after the fact, which is not nearly as good as doing it at the correct time but that's what I get stuck with sometimes.  
**

The door to the armored materia room was three inches thick and closed with a low thump that echoed through the now eerily empty reactor. Reno had pulled the thing shut, seeing as how the other three in his party looked utterly incapable of the task. Tessa had gone completely silent, a pained and oddly twitchy look on her face as they loaded the General to his temporary sleeping room. Cloud had made himself almost invisible from the moment they brought Sephiroth inside, skulking around the corners looking both nervous and guilty, and Zack had argued with him regarding the cuffs. Gaia, as if they should leave that guy unbound in nothing but a lightly armored room. Reno had succeeded in convincing him in the end, but only if the wrist cuffs were in front of his body. Not nearly as secure as in the back, in fact Reno had wanted to loop the wrist cuffs through the ankle manacles behind him effectively tying his hands and feet together. This suggestion almost got him killed. Then Zack had pestered him about air, and was only pacified when Reno found for him the venting that he knew existed, because you had to vent stored materia. Because it outgassed or some such thing.

_Then_ they had to pull Tessa away from Sephiroth's unconscious form as she took a sudden notion not to leave him and wrapped her arms around his freaky silver head. She let go reluctantly only after both he and Zack argued they needed her to kill Jenova. Then Zack went down in a heap, his head close to Sephiroth's, his hand on his marble white face, looking like he wasn't going to be able to tear himself away either. Reno had actually jerked the Soldier by his mass of black hair in a fit of frustration. Fuck, he hoped someday someone cared about him that much.

Reno's resentful musings were disturbed by a weight of an arm falling across his shoulders. He looked over into Zack's unnaturally bright eyes.

"Sorry," Zack said. "I've just never seen him like that. Helpless. I'm OK now."

"Well thank the Planet," Reno said, still annoyed with the whole drippy scene. Zack kissed him on the side of the head and took the lead on the way back to the reactor core. Reno sighed, unable to stay peeved at the affectionate Soldier. Zack was Zack, after all.

ccccccc

"Rude and Valentine are already inside," Reno said as the four of them stepped down onto the catwalk inside the reactor core. They could hear Vincent and Rude before they saw them, both struggling with what looked like a large silver colored statue of a woman with wings. The eyes were oddly black and dead looking, and Tessa's skin crawled with the feeling that it could see them.

"What part of 'lift up' do you not understand?" Vincent was accosting the other man.

"What part of 'too fucking heavy' do you not understand?" Rude retorted.

Both men stared at each other, arms crossed over their chests in stalemate.

"Well, nice to see we're making so much progress in here," Reno said, dropping the environmental suits he had collected onto a console. They were so far above the processing pool that the suits weren't needed, but they might want one for the sample collection. At least the gloves.

Tessa tore her eyes away from the mesmerizing glowing liquid in the pool below and pushed the environmental suits aside to examine the console. It was a healing tube control, still under power. No heartbeat or breathing to speak of, but there was a low level of cellular respiration being monitored. The units were total picograms per hour. _Of what? _she wondered. Mako maybe, the tube appeared to be filled with a 12 solution that was on slow positive flow, a percentage much too high for a healing tube for a human.

They were on some sort of platform no more than 30 feet on a side and at the far end sat the bizarre statue the men were arguing over. Tessa looked above them, and saw what she was looking for, several large pipes heading upward, but they turned at a right angle away from her and she couldn't tell where they were going. There was a small service platform near the bend, about fifteen feet up. Fifteen feet, she could do fifteen feet. She placed herself under and close to the platform, jumped and landed, one foot cleanly on the platform, the other, well, close enough. She couldn't see anything behind the statue, it was completely enclosed, but the pipes were definitely coming out of the top of that enclosure.

"Tessa, what are you doing?" Zack asked, a hint of alarm threading through his voice.

"I think there's a healing tube behind there with Jenova in it," she said, even as she began to creep along the pipes, studying their paths and looking at valves, "it's on a slow flow, so it must be producing waste mako to be flushed out to waste collection. It might be possible pull corrupted mako in through the waste pipe and flood the tube if it turns out to be a viable way to destroy her. Do any of you guys know anything about reactor plumbing?"

Her shoe slipped a bit on a pipe and Zack made to jump up to her, but Vincent had already landed next to her and stabilized her with a less than gentle grab under her upper arm.

"Thanks," she said wincing, remembering her scraped up wrist of earlier. Now she would have a lovely bruise to match on the inside of her arm. The guy was a definite beauty hazard.

"Green is good, red is wrecked." he said, "Pure mako flows in green coded pipes, the waste in red. Red is always the color code for corrupt mako."

He pointed out a large red striped pipe running along the wall. "That's one of the main waste pipes from materia processing. Most of the waste blows out of the towers, but waste from materia processing comes out the middle. It's very concentrated, and under pressure. The input pressure on your tank must be higher to maintain positive flow."

"So all I have to do is cut off the input flow and release the dump for the tank and the waste should flow right in there, right?"

Vincent shook his head. "There'll be a check valve to stop accidental backflow of waste. About here." He ran his hand along a section of pipe just upstream of the valve. "We need some tools."

Tessa checked her watch. One hour down.

ccccccc

During the next hour they made better progress. Rude and Reno went out to find pipe repair tools, and Vincent and Zack managed to brute force the statue aside. As the base slid with high pitched scraping noises along the metal floor Jenova came into view for the first time. They stared at the motionless body, wondering how a thing so dead looking could be alive. The creature was quite human in appearance, face, torso, breasts. Female, if human standards were to be applied. A boxy apparatus was attached to her head bearing the word 'Jenova'.

"I guess this is her alright," Zack said, dreamily. All six of them stood mesmerized. Tubes and wires ran out from her in every direction, and the lower half of her body had extra appendages that resembled large intestines. The arms appeared to be missing and she had stunted, or maybe damaged, red wings. Tessa thought about Sephiroth's single wing, huge, midnight black and covered in shiny feathers. Perhaps the creature had been beautiful once.

Tessa broke out of her trance and stepped forward, looking for the sample collection apparatus she had seen on many of Hojo's other tubes in the Midgar lab. This one seemed more primitive; the user had to actually guide the biopsy probe manually via a small swiveling handle. She experimented with the control, watching the result of the snakelike tube on the inside of the cylindrical glass. It looked like she would have to pick a spot herself. Tessa squinted at Jenova's skin, and found an area above her left hip that looked sort of... chewed on. The divots were only partially healed, and Tessa was surprised she could even see them after so many years in the tube, but on the other hand the creatures life signs were so low her healing was probably very slow. She maneuvered the snake head close to the site and then made it approach the skin, but missed and laid the head along side the front of Jenova's pelvis.

"Back more," Zack said.

"Move the stick more right," Cloud offered.

"No, I think more up."

"Shut up, you two!" Tessa said, grateful for once for Vincent's reticence.

After several more awkward attempts she finally managed to set the head of the probe perpendicular to a spot of flesh, and pushed what must be the collection button. There was an audible snap and all of them jumped. The probe had bounced backwards, leaving a small explosion of matter to float in the tube around it. It reminded Tessa of films she'd seen about flesh eating fish in the south rivers. She hadn't expected something so... violent. She retracted the snake and pushed the unload button that sucked the contents down the snake and deposited a jelly like gray mass into a sample vial.

"Yuck," Reno said, having returned from his tool hunt and now looking over their shoulders. Tessa looked up at him.

"I still need a bit of tainted mako," she said. "Can you get some, the concentrated stuff form the materia distillation? You'll have to be careful," she dug in her kit and held up a swab, a second vial, and pair of gloves.

"I'll do it," Vincent said. "It can't hurt me now."

Tessa looked at him and wondered what he meant by that. Surely Hojo hadn't exposed him to bad mako? She wanted to ask him but something about the guy really discouraged questions. He accepted the vial and the swab and headed back to the stairway. Apparently he knew where to go.

Tessa checked her watch. An hour and twenty minutes since they had put Sephiroth down. She hadn't heard from the voice since she had returned, maybe because the thing had given up on her. That in itself was unnerving for the degree of awareness or intelligence demonstrated; realizing the fetus inside of her was not a useful target. Maybe it was focusing all its attention on Sephiroth now.

ccccccccccccccc

Twenty minutes of reviewing the monitor readings, making random comments on the oddities of Jenova, and poking around the platform, and Vincent returned with the vial full of tainted mako. It had streaks of red that appeared and disappeared in it, and it looked like it was boiling and spitting. Tessa slipped on a pair of gloves before accepting it, looking at Vincent cautiously. If he had gotten some exposure he certainly didn't show any ill effects. He gave her that stand-offish, don't question me look again.

"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," she said softly to herself.

"What?" Vincent asked.

Tessa was sure he had heard what she said; he seemed to have enhanced hearing along with his other skills.

"It's a line from a very old children's story," she said, dumping the Jenova sample into a testing container. She had to give it a good shake as the stuff wanted to stick to the glass inside the collection tube.

"I know what it's from," Vincent said, "But not why you should choose to direct such a statement at me."

"It's a morality story, like all children's stories." Tessa laid a test probe onto the lump of Jenova material. Same low cellular, barely alive readings. "The boy Patro compulsively tells exaggerated lies about himself because he feels he cannot say anything truthful that will be good enough for the people around him." She added the tainted mako and sealed the test container quickly to cap in the roiling, spitting contents. "So he resorts to silence, and as a result he is isolated. But in the end he discovers not only does he need other people, but that they were far more accepting of him than he imagined."

Tessa adjusted something on the probe, and pretended to ignore Vincent.

"It's not the speaking of lies that I fear. It's the truths." Vincent turned away to stand at the very edge of the platform, gazing at the mako below.

Tessa sighed. He was going to be a tough one for sure.

"Hey, I think this is working," she said excitedly. After ten minutes the cellular activity was definitely lower, just a little, but it was measurable. And the sample was changing color, becoming bluer and more transparent. "I'll need to let it sit for awhile longer to be sure."

"The General's been out two hours," Reno said. Tessa was not the only one watching the time nervously. "I want to get that valve ready."

Reno eyed the platform, jumped for it and with a one hand assist fluidly set himself on top. Tessa watched him, realizing that Reno didn't actually have a fifteen foot vertical jump and didn't need it. Zack hadn't trained with her on these techniques, pushing off, climbing, and scrambling to get extra height. It was something she got the impression Reno would be really good at. Rude tossed the large, heavy tools up to Reno, then looked at Zack.

"I aint proud," he said, and Zack laced his fingers to gave him an extra boost up, where he landed neatly beside Reno.

The two Turks closed the valves for both inflow and outflow, and began to open the waste pipe to get at the check valve. A low hum started surrounded them.

"What is that?" Cloud asked.

"I don't know," Tessa said, "Maybe the pipes are reverberating or something. We've changed the pressure conditions by shutting the valves."

"It's her," Vincent said, now rejoining them, "It's the Jenova creature." Tessa felt a cold hand squeeze her stomach.

"Hey guys," Zack called up to the two Turks, "Sooner is better than later with that."


	38. Escape!

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: In one of the early chapters, when I was about a third of the way through writing this story, I predicted the story would have no more than 50,000 words. That's about a skinny paperback. We're at about 80,000 words now. Shows how much I know. But I think we're wrapping this up in another four or five chapters.**

His stomach hurt. Really really hurt. But he couldn't seem to wake up, and if he didn't wake up in time he would throw up on himself, and nobody would be there to help against the gagging. It would go on for hours with the terror of choking, and when he did finally wake there was no sink in his locked, cage like room. No way to clean himself of the sour liquid until morning, when some lab techs would come for him and wrinkle their noses against the smell. Except Jenny, Jenny would sometimes come and check on him at night. Jenny was the only one who ever checked on him to see if he was alright.

But then he remembered. Jenny was gone.

"You understand, Sephiroth, I've given you all the books on human psychology." The smug narrow face smirked down at him, black eyes partially hidden behind the glare of glasses. "You're six now. A motherly influence is needed for the infant to thrive, but it's no longer needed for you. Jenny has moved on to other tasks."

"I want her to come back! I want her NOW!" he squeezed his hands into fists until the nails broke the skin on his palms. He imagined reaching up and forcing his fingers into the black eyes, squeezing until the flesh was forced between them, the squishing, the screaming, he wanted to feel that.

Hojo frowned at him. "Now Sephiroth, I'm disappointed you've become so attached. Your emotional development has clearly not kept pace with your intellectual. Jenny was doing a job, that's all. I'm sure she was relieved to be free of such a... burdensome responsibility."

And then he had flown at the grown man, a rage of fiery green eyes and tiny fists. But he felt the needle prick, and the world became hues of yellow. And now the nausea that always followed that punishment.

_Wake up_ he told himself. _You need to wake up, now._

He was so groggy. He tried to feel his body; thankfully someone had thought to lay him on his side. That was better if he vomited. But nobody ever bothered with such care, except Jenny, and she was gone.

_WAKE UP!_ Gaia, how insistent. He stretched out one leg. Oddly the other went with it, but besides that he could feel the length and strength of his body. He was not a child of six. He was grown, powerful.

_Yes, powerful._

His mind struggled to clear itself while he fought down the nausea. At least that part was easier to do than he remembered. What had happened? There had been some fighting, and he had been bound, and drugged, and dragged, and locked up like some common drunkard, or a criminal. Or an animal. Was he in the lab? No, that was long ago. But not so long ago, really. People had done that exactly that to him, laid their hands to his flesh and brought him agony. People passed him in Wutai and spit when they thought he was not looking. People on the streets of Midgar responded only to ShinRa's marketed image of him. He was alone, ostracized, '_not human'_, '_psychopath'_, _'freak', 'interesting'._

_I'm not one of them, _he thought, _I'll never be one of them. _

_Better._

The idea came drifting into his semi consciousness. Yes, he was better, faster, and stronger than anyone on the planet. And he was more intelligent than most as well. And yet here he was again being treated like an animal. His whole fucking life had been this way, even in Soldier, they always kept their distance, the respect just a bit too formal, friendship never fully extended. But maybe it didn't need to be this way. Maybe he could just give in. He could give into his anger and the humiliation of a lifetime of slights and rejections.

_Yes, that's it_. He felt warmth seep over him. He just needed to give in, to go, hell with all of this.

_That's right, _he thought, _I don't need to feel this loneliness anymore._

_But you're not alone, you have at least two people who love you and a baby on the way._

The pain spiked in his head and he felt that jealous feeling again. What was that? Instead of just pushing it away this time he stopped to examine it. Alarm. Jealousy. Hatred.

"Gaia, what kind of monster hates their own child?" he said aloud to the empty room. He was fully awake now, sitting and staring into semi darkness. He hadn't remembered coming to, or sitting up, but the drugs were sometimes like that.

_I'm not a monster, _he thought, _I'm better than human. I am chosen, I am a god. I need to get rid of those who tether me to the mundane world._

This thought he pushed hard away with extreme distaste and received another stab inside his head for his efforts. There was something seriously wrong with his brain, and plus he realized he had been sitting for some time in a room talking to himself, sometimes out loud, sometimes just moving his lips. Just as Zack had said he was doing. Zack also had said he thought some_thing_ might be talking _to_ him.

But he wasn't hearing voices. Was he? He reviewed his mental conversation with himself. Well, that in itself was a little strange. He normally didn't answer himself in his own head. With a start Sephiroth considered that maybe not all his thoughts and feelings were his own. They sounded like his own internal voice, but were they? Was the creature 'talking inside his head' as Zack had put it?

He did his best to calm and collect his mind, then spoke out loud.

"Who are you?" he demanded out loud, pouring in the same mental and verbal venom he used to crumple annoying subordinates. Nothing. Silence stretched out in the darkened room, which now he noticed was filled with odd, soft glows. Where was he?

_I'm your mother, _he thought. In third person. Probably not his own thoughts, then.

_Lucrecia? _ He formed the thought the same way he might speak, only no sound. Pain lit in his head again.

_No, I am your mother, Jenova._

_Jenny? _He thought. But no, Jenny was gone. Jenny, Jenova... was it the same who had cared for him so long ago? Or was Jenny some figment of his mind? His memories suddenly seemed vague and suspect.

_Come my child, I need you. They are attacking me._

The voice was intensely soothing and he shut his eyes and sunk into it a bit.

_You must destroy those attacking me, my son. _ And this time he could see inside his head the 'attackers'. They were his own people, his wife, his loyal Zack, the Turks, doing something to some pipes. Zack's pet was there, and another odd character he couldn't place.

_No._

Pain seared his head, all the more intense for its recent absence. But if the entity desired to use pain to control him it was a definite mistake. Not once in his life did pain do anything but make him obstinate. He growled, a rough, feral sound. Nobody told him what to do. Not Hojo. Not ShinRa. Not some alien thing sneaking its way into his head. And sneaky it was. An outsider. No wonder Zack and Tessa were so alarmed.

"I am Sephiroth!" he bellowed at the top of his voice into the small room, "I have a family, and an unborn child that is _mine_! I know who my parents are and I have avenged them! I am GENERAL SEPHIROTH!"

As he predicted he was rewarded with more head pain. Fine. That he could deal with, as long as he knew the score. Knew what was his voice and what was not, knew who he was. He was a creature of the planet; there were things he loved, and people who loved him. A wife, a friend, maybe two. It was enough. And no way was he going to sit here and let these few precious people do his fighting for him.

He shut his eyes and did an activity that felt like mentally removing parts of his body. If his leg hurt, he shut out the pain by pretending that leg didn't exist, as if he had no leg. His time with Hojo had required the perfection of this technique. He tried this with various parts of his head, managed to block the throbbing pain in the back (some sort of blunt trauma he decided), but nothing directed at his head seemed to touch this new pain the alien Jenova was apparently sending. He tried other parts of his body, and finally had some success with something that felt like a stripe down his middle. The pain in his head lessened, and the voice started to scream. Screamed and screamed and screamed. He smirked in satisfaction. He could barely understand it now. It was muffled as if he had thrown a pillow over it. The kind you held over an enemy's face to suffocate him. Good.

He stood, noticing with annoyance his hands and feet were bound. They really should have trussed him behind his back if they were this worried, but he was at the moment grateful for small favors. Small soft spots on the part of his Second, no doubt. He reached down and pulled at the connecting piece of the cuffs around his ankles. He could only squeeze two fingers around that section, but managed to put enough force on it so the thing split a small cut in one leather boot.

"Fuck," he muttered. Those were expensive boots. Now if he had been wearing those awful, shiny, dress shin guards that might not have happened, but it seemed clear that the manacles would dig down to the bone before rupturing. Although that was still and option to try. Better if he could find something to cut them with. He made a survey of his person and found all his blades had been removed. The room also appeared to hold nothing sharp, although plenty of materia. He was in the materia storage room. Armored door, but not too thick. He aimed a shoulder at the door and threw his weight on it. Nothing. He pushed with both feet on the floor and launched himself onto it. It shuddered but held fast. _Damn_ he thought, if he could only put one foot on the floor while he kicked it. Then he would be transferring that connection to the floor, and hence the planet, onto the door. He'd never trained to deliver force with his feet stuck together, and so far he just putting his weight into the door wasn't enough. He eyed the wall opposite the door, about twelve feet away.

He launched two footed towards the far wall, stuck both feet onto it, then pushed off as if he was making a forty foot jump and slammed his back into the door. This time it blew off its hinges and sent him skittering across the floor like a bug on ice. He cracked his head into a rack of shelves that thanked him by showering him with sundry items, mostly metal and quite heavy. Machine parts by the feel of it. He crawled out of the pile, feeling a new knot rising on his scalp. This definitely was not a good day for his poor head.

He stood and crawled rather awkwardly back towards the materia room. Something long and silver was glinting along the floor near the wall.

"What was Zachary thinking, leaving you out here all alone like this?" He picked Masamune up and kissed the handle.

A quick swing and the sword had cut the bond neatly between his ankles. He threaded the blade inside the circle formed by his bound hands, set the handle between his feet and laid the back edge of the blade against his shoulder. He pinched his knees together to stabilize the edge upward, and with a quick tug downward with both hands and he was free.


	39. One Last Battle

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N:** I don't know if any of you are interested in stats. They fascinate me, and they're all about you. I think there are about 120 of you, at least that's what the hit count on the most recent chapter usually climbs to before I post the next. It might be more, if some people are behind. I guess I'll know better when the thing is finished and the last chapter has had time to sit awhile. The hit count on the YAOI replacement chapter Promise Me is at 207. The hit count for the bonus heterosmut chapter First Night is 224. About 16 of you write reviews (and I adore you folks, plus you have helped the development of this story a lot).

The low drone inside the reactor core increased in volume, and now there was something clearly threatening about the sound. It started to thrum with an almost inaudible rhythm. Zack knew that sound-feeling, you could hear it, or more precisely _feel_ it, right before Sephiroth made a materia-less fire or lightning launch.

"Reno, Rude, get off of there!" he yelled, but too late. A glowing yellow surface exploded out from Jenova's tube and both Turks balled up, yelling in pain and surprise, and were bowled off the platform and into the abyss below. Cloud was already calling every shield he knew and the bright surface of the energy wave floated up and over the rest of them. A second and a third came, prickling their scalps as it went overhead. They waited for a fourth, watching their shield closely, strengthening it when needed, and listening in vain for any sound of the two men they lost below. They were in no danger of running out of materia, Zack and Cloud had stuffed their pockets with it before they left materia storage, but casting was fatiguing. They wouldn't be able to keep it up all night. Zack passed several pieces to Vincent, who took his turn with the shield. Vincent looked at Tessa and she shook her head, feeling useless. So far in her materia practice the only spell she had made any progress with was cure.

"I think she knows what we're up to," Tessa said, "We need to finish the work on that pipe."

Vincent nodded and leapt from where he was.

"Will the shield follow him while he jumps?" Tessa asked Zack, who was too flabbergasted to answer upon seeing a guy fly right through a combination of Shield and Wall with the same kind of distance he'd only seen in Sephiroth. He was vulnerable while he made the jump, but luckily either Jenova didn't notice him immediately or she simply had a delay in launching the energy wave because another didn't come until Vincent had landed and was casting a shield in his new position. They must have hit at the same time, because he groaned and was pushed backwards, the clawed hand holding fast to a pipe as he struggled to get a new shield in place.

As Tessa watched him she heard both Zack and Cloud draw their swords and looked down to see the floor was shimmering in front of them, on _their_ side of the shield. Suddenly four figures grew right out of the metal platform. They were vaguely human, unclothed and sexless, but with wings and skin that shone like metal. All four had bright green eyes with slotted pupils and each one carried a long, curved sword.

"Oh you've got to be kidding," Zack said and took a swing at the nearest. The other three took flight, one screeching as Cloud clipped its foot. The severed foot, clawed and somewhat prehensile, disintegrated as it fell into a puff of metallic powder. Zack's beast likewise disintegrated once he landed several blows on it, and more creatures grew suddenly out of the platform floor to keep the two swordsmen busy. Vincent was having similar problems at his own location and had taken to shooting the things in between working on the pipe.

Tessa heard a small thump behind her and whirled to come face to face with one of the creatures. She was momentarily stunned by its eyes, so similar to Sephiroth's. It waited for a moment, seeming to smile at her maliciously with metal lips, and then the blade flashed above her. She pulled out the electromag rod Reno had given her and managed to strike the blade sideways. It was just as Zack had been teaching her to do; always fight as thought the other guy is stronger than you, push the blow, push it sideways rather than hit it force to force. They had practiced with empty hands, and although this time she had something in her hand she found it wasn't too different. It was, however, the only thing she knew how to do. Well, besides the stab the beastie with the end of the rod. She did that and was thrilled to hear the ear splitting screech of the thing as it backed away. No wonder the men liked this, she thought. And not only men, that little girlfriend of Cloud's, she was beating the crap out of monsters with just her hands and feet. She passed another sword strike from the winged thing and then kicked one of its knees from the side as hard as she could. More satisfying screeching occurred. She jabbed the EMR into its body several times, until an electrical storm seemed to course through it and it exploded, showering her with the fine silver particles. She blinked to try and clear her eyes of the stuff and heard two soft thumps near her.

_Shit_.

But almost immediately Tessa heard two sets of truncated screeches and more of the dust hit her face. She managed to squint one eye open in time to see large expanse of black fly over her head, twist in the air spreading long silver hair into a fan, and dust one of the winged beasts before landing.

Zack was so busy swinging that he barely registered Sephiroth landing next to him, and almost forgot to check if the General was swinging at him or with him. He figured since he was still alive the answer was with him.

"Seph," he managed to say in between blows. There must have been about twenty of the creatures in the air and fighting around them now. "You're OK."

Sephiroth didn't answer right away, instead he concentrated on getting himself coordinated with the other two fighters on the platform. Between the three of them they could surround the console where Tessa was, who had now thankfully crouched down behind it. He noticed the kid Cloud was doing quite well; he was a natural two bladed fighter.

"No." Sephiroth answered, finally. "Not OK. But under control." The annoying voice in his head had gotten considerably louder since he came into the core. It had taken up taunting him, saying how he couldn't hurt her, she was powerful, and when all the weaklings he loved were dead he would only have her... infuriating as hell it was.

Sephiroth was attracted to the sporadic gunfire above their position but couldn't make out what was going on there. It didn't look like their Turks.

"The guy in red is ours," Zack said, spitting out metal dust from his last kill.

Sephiroth nodded. It was all he needed to know about him for the moment. "Reno and Rude?" he asked.

Zack shook his head.

Sephiroth swore softly. After all the times of thinking he would like Reno to simply stop existing he discovered that he was unhappy about it. The guy was at least on their side.

Several of the winged demons came dive bombing down into the center of the group in a concentrated attack and Sephiroth jumped to meet them, spinning in a whirlwind that showered dust over the whole group. He had for a moment a better view of the figure in red. He was fast, Soldier fast. He had an enormous pipe wrench in his hand and was alternately fighting with it and using it to do... something to the pipe. And he was shooting with his other hand. He had no idea where they had gotten such a guy but was glad to have him.

_The humans are tiring, my son._

"Shut up," Sephiroth growled as he landed, earning a worried look from his Second. But as least the flying creatures were considerably dwindled now.

"I think she's tiring," Zack said.

_Not at all,_ the voice was quite clear inside his head now. _I just wanted to talk to you. They are going to die, two are already gone. Give them up, come to me now. I am your mother, I know you love me._

"Shut up, _mother,_" Sephiroth said, sarcastically emphasizing the word 'mother', and aimed a monstrous stroke at the tube.

"Sephiroth, NO!" Tessa screamed, but the tube had already splintered into thousands of gleaming shards, the green liquid gushing out as Masamune cleaved Jenova's head clean from her body. As it did so a strange electric sparking ran up the blade. The head of Jenova rolled, bouncing off of pieces of broken glass, and everything stopped. The flying creatures vanished, and it seemed that maybe their creator had been vanquished. But Tessa knew better, Jenova could not be killed by separating her parts. It was one of her properties; her cells stayed alive and connected even when they weren't. Sephiroth stood utterly unmoving and then he turned slowly to look directly at Tessa. Something was wrong, his head was lowered, and he peered at her through the tops of wild eyes. His face held a crazed light that couldn't be attributed to the eerie glow from the mako below, and his mouth twisted in an evil smile. He raised his sword, one handed, casual, sinister.

Zack felt his stomach fall into his shoes. They hadn't saved him. They hadn't sidestepped his fate, they were here, in the industrial setting of the dream, and they hadn't saved him.

"Looks like I'm on," Zack said.

Tessa stared at the side of Zack's face, his mouth rigid, a frightening blaze in his eyes, and she understood part of him she had not before. That under the good humor, the joking, affection, and generosity, lay something hard and brutal. Like a granite cliff face when the softness of earth and grass and moss has been suddenly storm swept away. He was a Soldier. He would do whatever he had to do. He would die doing it.

And then he was gone, launching his attack without warning, drawing Sephiroth's attention away from her. Cloud, although poorly informed about the situation with the General and so often unsure of how to react, also apparently sensed the change in Sephiroth and ran to assist Zack as soon as Vincent jumped back down to the main area.

Sephiroth and Zack had jumped off and into the maze of catwalks and pipes before Vincent could get a shot off, if he could even figure out who he was supposed to shoot at in this bizarre drama. Not that he had much time to contemplate; he barely caught the low thrumming sound again before realizing their shields were down. He grabbed Tessa and whirled them both around, putting his back to the ruined tube and the headless slumped mass of the Jenova creature. The energy wave hit him full on and he curled his body around Tessa, shielding her smaller frame with his. Despite years of practiced pain resistance and some particularly gruesome and painful experiences on Hojo's table he still cried out through gritted teeth. When the wave passed he found he could barely take a breath, it felt like every muscle in his body was trying to cramp up on him. He forced his limbs to work, knowing there was precious little time until the next one. He grabbed Tessa, who was also gasping for air, and dumped her on the far side of the console. The next wave came and hit him from the side. His scream of pain was unmitigated this time and his body clenched uncontrollably into a ball and slammed into the near side of the console, without which he would have been blown off the platform.

Tessa felt the wave even sheltered as she was, but from the sound of it she was faring far better than Vincent, alone and exposed out in front. She forced her body to crawl around the side of the thing; she had to drag him back here with her. But as she came around the edge she saw another winged creature was emerging near Vincent. Only this one wasn't silver, it was red, and much bigger, and infinitely more terrifying. Its claws were enormous and red jagged spires jutted from all over its head. It gave her one look with glowing yellow eyes and almost smiled, and the face, while feral, looked like... _no, it can't be... or maybe it can?_

Then the red creature turned, drew into itself and Tessa ducked just in time as some sort of red energy wave burst out of it, colliding with Jenova's yellow wave and sending explosive sparks in all directions. Then there was a hair raising roar and she saw the red creature lift overhead, wings spread, towards Jenova. She peered up over the console, too engrossed to be afraid. The thing had settled over the spot where the healing tube was, crushing the remnants. Then the red orb came again and Tessa ducked, but it didn't flow all the way out. It came part way out, then sucked deep back into the creature, scraping everything within its perimeter along with it.

Then there was silence in which her own ragged breath sounded loud in her hears. The quiet was broken by the agonized scream of a man, a defeated death howl. She looked desperately up and to the right where the three swordsmen had disappeared.

"Sephiroth!" Tessa tried to scream but her throat choked it to a whisper. She couldn't see them at all, there were so many pipes. As she scanned to and fro something moving caught her eye, a long gracefully curved sword falling downward, glinting from the green glow until it made the barest of splashes below.

**A/N: I know! It's a cliffy! Sorry! But the chapter breaks where it breaks, and this is what I need to do to keep to my self imposed goal of posting every two days. Next chapter will be up Saturday morning (9/15/07), early, I promise. **


	40. Picking up the Pieces

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

Zack leapt furiously between pipes, rails, and structures he didn't have time to identify. The place was a real jungle gym and he would have enjoyed himself were it not for the sword wielding maniac trying to kill him. It was a terrible place to fight Sephiroth, given his acrobatic advantage. On the other hand there was no good place to fight the man. Zack was sweating, panting, already tired from the previous action. Sephiroth was maddeningly cool, fighting him one handed, smiling that awful, twisted smirk, even taunting him by name. 

"You always were a little slow on the left side, Zachary," Sephiroth said as the tip of Masamune bit through a piece of shoulder muscle on his left.

"Always second, Zack, the pup trailing around in my shadow. It's all you'll ever be."

Zack would have liked to think his commander, his friend, this man that he admired and loved was not behind the relentless fiend that was attacking him, but comments like that made it hard to believe that Sephiroth wasn't in there somewhere, enough to know where to aim a verbal blow that could distract and sting. That was in addition to another tip graze to his side and a couple of blunt traumas where an exchange had blown him backwards into some unknown, lumpy thing. This was all while Sephiroth was shielding and launching fire against Cloud, who had a thankfully had a knack for swordplay and casting at the same time. But he had gotten too close to Sephiroth and been knocked off their level. Zack wondered with odd detachment if Cloud had fallen into the abyss. It probably didn't matter; he was expecting them all to die here.

He was vaguely aware of some sort of fireworks were going on below. Maybe the damn reactor would blow up.

Then Sephiroth froze in mid stroke, Masamune poised in the air, and screamed. The sound was so guttural, so heart wrenching, that Zack almost went to him before remembering they were trying to kill one another. Then the General did something Zack never thought he'd see, he opened the fingers of his sword hand and let Masamune fall. His eyes cleared and he seemed to see Zack for the first time, and Zack wondered if he was dying.

"Zack," he said, only a whisper.

Zack lowered his weapon, knowing it was a tactical error and not caring, not caring that Sephiroth was plenty lethal with no weapon in his hands. He'd had enough. Let Seph kill him, he was done fighting him. Zack stepped forward and wrapped his free arm around Sephiroth's neck and pulled him down to his shoulder. Sephiroth's pliant form fell into him, fists grabbing up balls of Zack's bloody shirt like a child.

"I'm so sorry, Zack," he whispered, "I wasn't strong enough."

"Shhh," Zack laid his cheek onto Sephiroth's head, "I think its over."

Sephiroth raised his face, eyes pained and pleading, then he straightened and forced himself to regain some semblance of composure. He was after all, like it or not, still Sephiroth. Nobody else was going to walk around and be that for him.

"Where's your pet?" he asked Zack.

But Cloud was already coming up behind him, having just clambered up to their level, limping, bloody, face smudged with soot and several of his spikes burnt nearly off. And he had about all he could take of this good Sephiroth bad Sephiroth routine. Ten seconds ago he was trying to kill them. Now he was in Zack's arms.

"I would appreciate it, General, if you would stop referring to me as Zack's pet!" he snarled.

Sephiroth raised his eyebrows, then a hand shot out and caught Cloud by the jaw. Zack was momentarily alarmed, but then recognized the grip as one frequently used for mouthy recruits. It was part of the General's normal behavior, at least. Sephiroth's fingers would be digging into the Dokko pressure point under Cloud's ear. The pain was exquisite; he'd been the subject of it himself many times as a recruit and even while he was Third Class. Cloud immediately became still, eyes wide. Besides the sheer pain the General's strength was legendary, and Cloud knew he could snap his jaw in three places without blinking. He rose up on his toes, trying to alleviate the pressure under his ear, but to no avail.

"You belong to me, Soldier. I'll call you what I wish. Don't be cheeky." Sephiroth released Cloud almost gently. "Clearly I've been letting you spend too much time with this one," and he cuffed Zack hard on the back of the head on his way down towards the main platform. "And get a cure on those wounds, Zachary."

Zack shrugged at Cloud who was moving his face around trying to get his jaw to function again.

"I don't know what to say, kid, you just have to accept him sometimes."

But Cloud wasn't looking angry or even resentful. He looked sort of... dreamy.

"Did he just call me Soldier?"

Zack managed a small grin. "Yeah, I'm afraid you're stuck with us now, formalities be damned. Seph never says anything he doesn't mean." He frowned for a moment at his own words, and then shrugged it off. He shouldn't hold the man responsible for things he said while out of his mind and trying to kill him. "Cure me up, will ya Spike?"

ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth leapt lightly down to the main platform and surveyed the scene. The voice in his head was completely gone and he knew that Jenova was destroyed. But with the amount of noise and light that had come from this area he was fearful of what he might find.

Tessa's coppery head peered at him from behind the console. Relief washed over him, but somehow he couldn't manage to get it to break through the fresh control he had erected over his face. Or move his limbs. She crouched fearfully for a moment, studied him, then ran forward and flung both arms around his neck.

"Sephiroth- ." His name came out in a whimper and he wrapped his arms around her. His mind, heart, and consequently stoic control melted under the sound of that whimper. It was an odd thing to him, if a man begged or whimpered at him it only increased his desire to kill him. But from this soft pretty creature it made him want to soothe, protect. At least that boded well for his upcoming fatherhood role. Then he was hit with multiple stabs of guilt for failing to protect her, or them rather, in fact he had meant to kill them. His wife and unborn child. The guilt induced nausea on top of the residual from the drug actually rose a bit of bile in his throat.

He swallowed it down, lifted Tessa's chin and brushed her lips softly with his own. He stared down at her, his face somewhat conflicted and she could tell he was thinking about the business with the syringe. He wasn't the type who forgave attacks on his person readily.

"Please don't do that to me again," he said.

She pulled away a bit and knit her eyebrows at him. "You'd rather I let you run amok on a possessed, homicidal spree?"

He shook his head and pressed a hand to his complaining stomach. "No. Just... find some other way."

She smiled a little at him, squinting one eye, then peeled away from him. He knew he had pushed her out of that whimpering mode. It was probably for the best as they had some work left to do, although he was sorry to see the softness go. Maybe he could get some of that whimpering later.

She went immediately to the place Jenova had been. The alien was gone, utterly gone, along with every scrap of glass, mako, and machinery in the area. There was a clean spot about ten feet in diameter and the figure in red was crouched unmoving in the center of it.

"Vincent?" Tessa stepped cautiously towards him. "Vincent!" she said with more force.

He looked up slowly and Tessa could see bright gold mixing and swirling in his normally red eyes. In anything else it would have been quite beautiful, but seeing that inside a person's eyes was mildly terrifying.

"Did you just... swallow Jenova?" She asked.

"Chaos did," he said, now rising to his feet.

Tessa heard the whirring sound inside her head as she scanned through the volumes of material she'd absorbed from the lab in the Mansion. It had only been a day or two ago, although it felt like months. There it was, something from Lucrecia Cresent's notes. Some Cetra stuff.

" 'Wrought of terra corrupt' Chaos?" She asked. If that's what Chaos was, an entity made from corrupt mako, it might make sense that it could...eat Jenova.

Vincent gave no indication that he heard or understood the question. "He's still chewing her apart, cell by cell. He's happy. It's... a disturbing sensation."

"But you're all right?"

"I am unchanged by the experience," he said. Tessa could swear something close to a smile crossed his face. She also noticed his voice was smoothing out, settling down into something velvety. Dangerous and seductive sounding, quite like a slightly lower pitched version of her husband's.

She saw Sephiroth stare at Vincent; he had to have identified him from the file photo, but he didn't approach. Instead he started walking along the edge of the platform, peering downward. She wondered what he could be doing when he stopped and folded his arms over his chest.

"Need a little help down there?" he called.

_OH! Reno and Rude! _ she thought. With a cringe she realized that she had forgotten about them.

Sephiroth hadn't been too surprised to find them, however. He had seen from Jenova's mind that they had been pushed over the edge, but there was so much structure in here it was unlikely an pair of experienced Turks wouldn't get a hold of something. As it was they were dangling. From what he couldn't tell, some Turk device, no doubt. Rude, who appeared to be holding an unconscious Reno, glared 30 feet up at him instead of replying.

Sephiroth dropped down, touching off one large pipe onto the next until he stood directly above them. An odd, slick looking rope had one end wrapped around a pipe and the other was tangled up in Rude's left arm, which was twisted at an unnatural angle. Rude didn't speak. His remaining limbs were holding Reno's weight. If Rude had been hanging like this for the last twenty, (or had it been thirty?) minutes he surely shredded every tendon in his arm and shoulder. Plus his left hand was completely gray and dead looking. He was probably going to loose that arm and must be fighting desperately against the pain. There was no way he could have pulled both himself and Reno up with that mangled limb.

Sephiroth considered how to get them off of there. He jumped down to a location below them.

"Rude," he said calmly "Release Reno and I'll catch him on my way up," Sephiroth pointed to a second perch. It looked crazy, but Soldiers were always doing crazy stuff. Still, he hesitated.

"Trust me," Sephiroth said, in his best calm-modulated voice.

"You haven't been very trustworthy lately," Rude said.

"I know." Sephiroth waited.

"Rude," The conversation had woken Reno, "You didn't let go of me."

"No way partner," Rude said. "I wouldn't let anything happen to you. But I have to drop you now. The General's going to catch you."

"General hates me, yo."

"We don't have any choice, partner."

Reno gave him an unconfident look but nodded drowsily.

"OK," Rude called, "Here he comes," and slowly uncoiled his stiff limbs, dropping Reno ungracefully below.

Sephiroth jumped, caught Reno in midair exactly where he intended to, and landed on another pipe. It wasn't too hard; he'd been catching men midair practically his whole career. But how precious this one must be to Rude for him to manage not to drop a weight that was literally tearing his arm off. He shuffled Reno around in his arms until he had him under knees and shoulders, and Reno's head fell into the crook of Sephiroth's neck. Reno's face and hair were caked with blood.

"I'm going to jump you back up to the platform Reno. Don't wiggle."

Reno smiled, managed to hook a chunk of Sephiroth's hair with two fingers, and wrapped it around his chin like a blanket.

"Sephy loves me," he said, and nuzzled into the General's neck. Sephiroth rolled his eyes up into his head and resisted the urge to drop Reno right there. Zack would probably never forgive him if he did.

Up at the platform he laid Reno down. Zack and Cloud had returned, so now there was quite a crowd watching him bring the Turk up.

"Head injury," Sephiroth said. He rather hoped Reno would get amnesia too because he didn't like the idea of the Turk remembering all that... snuggling. He yanked the bit of his hair away that the half-conscious man seemed determined on keeping.

Tessa leaned over him, looked at his pupils, and grabbed a piece of materia. Finally she could stop feeling useless with something she knew how to do. Her training was disease and research, a non-materia based branch of medicine. But since she had taken the job at ShinRa she'd had plenty of trauma experience, because every Soldier insisted on seeing her instead of regular Medical even for injuries. And they always had plenty of injuries.

Sephiroth went back over the edge to fetch Rude. It took them considerably longer as Rude insisted on making the trip mostly under his own power. They could hear the group discussing above, Tessa explaining to Zack and Cloud what had happened.

"So why the hell didn't you just destroy the damn thing right away?" Zack was clearly upset.

"I didn't know I... he... it, could do that." Valentine was picking his words laboriously.

"You didn't _know_?!"

"Ease up, Zack," Tessa came to his defense. "I don't think he knows that much about it. Vincent, do you even know how many discrete mako entities you are hosting?"

There was a long pause.

"Four," he said.

_Four?_ the number bounced around in Sephiroth's head. He had seen one, the large red winged demon through the terrified eyes of Jenova. The one Vincent and Tessa called Chaos. He had three others? And he was transfigurable between them? Gaia, Valentine made him look normal.

"It's OK, Vincent," Tessa said, noticing his obvious distress. "We'll get this all figured out. We have a lot of time. Funny, for the last two days all I could feel was time running out, but now we have plenty. Can't you guys feel it?"

"Like hell yawning before me," came Vincent's chilling reply.

Rude was pale with the pain by the time he hauled himself up one handed to the platform. Tessa felt the cold fingers of his left hand. The injuries were more than 20 minutes old. Materia couldn't fix this. Nothing could. She put a cure into his shoulder for partial healing and to ease the pain, then carefully removed his suit jacket. She wanted it off in case the area started to swell, and also meant to use it as a sling. Of course it was full of... stuff. She began to unload all manner of strange items and handing them to Zack and Cloud. Some of the pockets it took her several seconds to even find the openings.

"Don't worry," Zack said, "We'll take good care of your stuff and make sure you get it all back."

Rude was looking tired and out of it. "I know I'm going to loose it," he said to Tessa, looking down at his ruined left arm.

"I'm sorry, Rude," Tessa said.

"Well it's a good thing you beat off with your right, yo." Reno was feeling a little better, cracking jokes, but looking at Rude from his spot on the floor with the most sorrowful expression.

But Rude smiled. "I want one of those mechanical arms. One that shoots. And has a grappling hook. And materia slots. And electronics that I can control without touching, just using my head."

"And that little thing to pick your nose with," Reno added.

"Yeah," Rude said.

Tessa looked over when she heard Zack chuckling softly and noticed Sephiroth smirking. These men really were too much.

"Well," she said, deciding to adopt their cavalier attitude if that's what was called for. "If you have the Mechanical dept design it I'll put it on. We did one in Junon, though not nearly so fancy. I know an excellent micro surgeon for the nerve receptor implants. And you'll be in a tube for a few days."

"Ah, bastard gets a vacation," Reno was on his feet now. "Shall we go?"

**A/N: And yes, our Turks survive. I needed to get them out of the way because 1) writing a fight scene with that many characters without losing the reader is beyond me 2) I needed an opportunity to demonstrate that someone does in fact love Reno as much as he was wishing for when he had to tear Sephiroth's people away from him in the Materia room. Rude looses an arm, but I think he'll be that much more kick ass for it. And to share a quote that xXxValentinexXx sent me, from the ninth Doctor Who, "Everybody lives Rose! Just this once everyone lives!" heh heh heh.**


	41. Give and Take

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: This post is early, the others may be as well. I'm trying not to rush the ending, but Gaia, I need my life back. And as much as I love Sephiroth I want him to leave me alone for awhile. He just needs to stop following me around in the grocery store and talking to me in the car and waking me up at night. **

"Fuck, do I ever want to go to bed, a nice, quiet bed." Zack said, when they finally got on the level floor of a reactor hallway. "And we should drop Reno and Rude off at the hospital. How do we get back into town?"

"The garage should still have a car I was planning to take into town," Sephiroth said. "It's near the landing pad."

The two Turks trudged slowly ahead, staying together. Zack sent Cloud after them, ostensibly to keep watch over them, although Cloud looked no more steady than they. Tessa and Zack stayed back because far to the rear Sephiroth and Vincent were lagging behind them, coming together almost naturally.

"Let's give them some space," Tessa pulled Zack ahead, but not so far that they wouldn't be able to eavesdrop.

"You are Sephiroth." Valentine stated rather than asked, quickly scanning the General head to foot and then back again. "You are not what I expected."

Zack grimaced and pressed his palm to his forehead. Gaia, didn't he live through this already with the son? The painful and inappropriate statements of fact? The total disregard for the feelings of the listener?

Sephiroth looked at the other man for a long moment. His father. In the flesh.

"You are more than I ever hoped for," Sephiroth said softly. Zack smiled in relief. That was his boy.

Valentine was silent, seemingly a little taken aback by this, much in the same way that Sephiroth had originally been put off balance by Zack's completely candid and forceful demonstrations of affection in their early relationship. Maybe Sephiroth had learned those lessons better than either he or Zack had realized.

"I should have never let this happen to you," Vincent said sadly, "Everything that happened to you."

Sephiroth considered. "Yes, I'd have to say my early life was god awful. But if I had to trade what I have now for different past I would not do it."

Vincent shot him a doubtful look.

"Fine. If you insist on clinging to some guilt that I might use to my advantage I'd like to ask something of you. Three things, actually."

"First, I request that you not disappear," Sephiroth plunged forward without receiving an answer, because he didn't expect one and the man's face was maddeningly unreadable.

"I understand if you have an urge to wander the planet, maybe to escape, or hide, or even die, but I need some thread of connection to you. It's only recently that I learned I had actual parents instead of just grown out of some Petri dish. That tiny scrap of knowledge, a belief in my humanity, has been a tremendous help to my outlook and I'm sure it slowed down the alien's influence on me. I would like to know more, about your life, my mother's, anything. I don't care how long it takes you. I don't care how small the tidbits are. But I must have contact with you."

Vincent hesitated and nodded ever so slightly. He should at least do that for his son. He would find some way to do that. To speak of the past.

"Second, I don't use a surname and don't feel I need one. But I would like my child who will be born soon to have one. I would like to use Valentine."

Now Vincent almost smiled. "It's already yours to give."

"And third, I want you to accept my gratitude for saving me, all of us, tonight." Sephiroth saw the slight shake of Vincent's head and shook his own more vigorously. "Without deflecting, without arguing, just say 'you're welcome', that's it. This third thing I want right now."

Vincent stared him, momentarily at a loss. "Demanding bugger, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," Sephiroth said sternly, but his face was open, almost pleading.

"You're welcome," Vincent said, recognizing that for reasons he didn't understand Sephiroth needed to hear that. And it was such a small thing, after all.

Sephiroth stopped and held out his hand and Vincent knew he was expected to take it. A handshake, that's all, a symbol of his agreement. But step by step Sephiroth had brought them to a point where this was the result, step by deliberate step drawing Vincent to closer. Vincent narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest. Son or no he would have to watch out for this one. Clever, even manipulative he was.

And stubborn. Sephiroth refused to be embarrassed or retract his hand.

"Please," he said, his voice taking on an odd soothing cast that made something (or four somethings) inside Vincent settle quietly, "I guess I wanted one more thing." And try as he might Vincent could not escape the traces of Lucrecia in his son's face, and when he looked down at Sephiroth's palm, now rotated more upward and reaching, yearning, he recognized that too. The palm, the long tapered fingers. They were his own. He offered his right hand, but when Sephiroth's fingers curled to enclose it he jerked noticeably.

Sephiroth smiled slightly, not in the least discouraged.

"I recognize that flinch," he said, "It comes from Hojo's... attentions. You've been sleeping all this time; it probably feels quite fresh to you."

"Like yesterday," Vincent said.

"I was fourteen years on his table, but am now ten years free. It _will_ fade." Sephiroth, still grasping Vincent's hand, held them in position while Zack and Tessa were forced to continue on or risk looking impertinent. They figured Sephiroth probably knew they had been listening, and probably the rest of the conversation could not fully be understood by anyone but those two men.

"You know they look quite alike, now that I see them together," Zack said. "They _move_ alike. I didn't think anybody moved like Sephiroth, all fluid and catlike."

"Well, they have the same limb structure, their joints and hips especially look similar, and- ." She stopped, blushed, remembering where she had collected this bit of info. Damn her photographic memory.

Zack who could get little impression of Valentine's physical construction for the amount of leather and red cape he kept himself wrapped in, looked at Tessa questioningly.

"I didn't mean to look," she said, "he was nude except for that red shroud when he got up, and well..." she had looked.

Zack grinned.

"I've had that kind of thing happen to me," he said. "Sometimes it's too hard not to look."

cccccccccc

The sun was just threatening to come up over the mountain when they exited the east door, blanketing the building and an enormous airship with a faintly orange light. Zack looked at the ship, confused. The engines were off, but the blades were still spinning. He distinctly remembered Sephiroth's ship taking off last night. Several occupants had disembarked and were coming towards the building. Soldiers, he realized. Six of them.

"Marcus!" he called out. "What are you doing here?" They clasped hands when they reached one another.

"The General pulled us off our field mission last night and told us to get our butts over here and take care of whatever might need taking care of. But I'm still not sure what that is."

"Us, I think," Zack stuck out a hand and pushed Reno into a more vertical orientation as he had started to list dangerously.

One of the Second Classes wandered over to Cloud and curiously snapped a burnt tip off of his blond hair. Cloud smacked the Soldier's hand away and glared at him so hard the man put up his hands apologetically and meandered away from him. Zack smiled. The kid was getting positively ornery. He was going to make a good Soldier.

"So," Marcus said, "Where is the Silver Menace, is he here?"

"Uh, coming." Zack turned around to look at the door, and presently Sephiroth and Vincent emerged. He could see the question on Marcus's face when he got a load of Valentine.

"Don't ask about him," Zack said. "I'll explain later."

"Marcus," Sephiroth said. "Nice of you to join us."

"Yes sir, thank-you sir."

The other five Soldiers fell in behind their First Class, quiet and attentive to Sephiroth.

"Did we miss everything?" Marcus asked. Everyone coming out of the reactor, including Sephiroth, looked fairly dazed and beat up. Everyone except the weird guy shrouded in red. He looked... unreal.

"Not entirely," Sephiroth said. "But we won't be doing anything more today. You have a ground vehicle on this ship?"

"You bet."

"Good. Pick a driver and you'll be accompanying us back into town, I'll brief you on the way."

Tessa leaned into Sephiroth and said something quietly into his ear.

"Actually, all you guys grab your field gear. You're staying but I'm sending this ship back to Junon with our Turks. Is communication to this area still down? You have an uplink on board?"

"Yes and yes," Marcus answered.

Sephiroth nodded to Tessa, who entered the ship. Then he went over to where Reno and Rude were standing. Barely. Reno was especially looking bad. Head injuries were tricky, materia might heal the injury but didn't make the extra blood that had flowed into the area disappear. That took time. Reno probably had a hell of a headache. Given Sephiroth's recent six hours of excruciating head pain he actually had some sympathy for the Turk. And Rude's arm would need careful treatment to maximize the possibility of a good result for prosthetic later.

"The care facilities here are somewhat primitive," he said to the two Turks, "I'm sending you two to the hospital in Junon. Tessa is calling them now, and she'll call Tseng as well. Everything should be arranged by the time you get there."

"Thank-you, General," Rude said.

Reno looked quite a bit worse now that Sephiroth got a closer look at him. His breathing was labored, and he looked like he might want to say something, but was having trouble speaking. He motioned for Sephiroth and the General leaned his head forward.

"Thanks," Reno whispered and then kissed him on the cheek.

"Agh!" Sephiroth made a disgusted noise and jerked his head away, glaring at Reno.

"You wouldn't hit a guy with a head injury, would you?" Reno smirked, but the act of talking and smiling actually caused him to wince in pain.

Sephiroth turned on his heel and strode away. Reno chuckled behind him but every laugh was followed by a groan.

"Serves you right," Rude said.

"It was worth it, yo. Did you see his face? Heh heh, Ow, fuck ow, gah, ngh!"

cccccccccccccccccc

When everybody was settled the airship slowly lifted off the pad in a torrent of wind and noise, tilted its body as it gained altitude and headed for Junon. Four of the Soldiers were inside the reactor guarding the opening to the reactor core and the now un-lockable materia storage room with orders to block entry to either (unless, of course, they needed some materia themselves). Sephiroth noticed Tessa was avoiding eye contact with him, and that maybe he was doing the same. He felt awkward and guilty over his behavior. The brief moment on the platform hadn't really been enough to reconnect given the events that had passed; he needed to spend some time alone with her. Zack too, he really hadn't given him much attention after trying so hard to kill him. At least Zack was used to his abuse. Valentine was standing apart from the group looking sullen, he had no idea what to do with him, and Cloud looked tired and confused. Somebody needed to clarify for the kid where he stood, and Sephiroth thought it would probably be best if he did it himself.

Life had been so much simpler before he had developed all these personal connections.

"Alright," he said, gathering his thoughts. His head was free of the pain now, but it felt... sore. "Town. There's a hotel you guys are staying at, right?"

Vincent leaned backwards from the group, not stepping away but clearly withdrawing.

_Fuck_ Sephiroth thought, _what is it now?_

_I don't know if I'm ready to face a hotel._

The two men stared at each other, mouths dropping open in identical expressions. Each had heard the other, but neither had spoken out loud. Sephiroth had experienced this briefly with Jenova, but this was clearly Vincent's voice. Both remembered to shut their gaping mouths and swallowed at the same time.

"What's going on?" Tessa asked, sensing something was amiss.

"I think we can hear each other in our heads," Sephiroth said.

Tessa looked from one to the other. "Everything?"

"I don't think so." Vincent said. "I didn't hear anything until you directed that exasperated comment at me. The one you bit back from vocalizing."

_I'm sorry _Sephiroth thought, using the same technique as he had with Jenova, imagining he was talking but not actually doing it.

_No problem._

Both men smiled a little.

"Sephiroth, could you communicate with Jenova in this way?" Tessa asked.

"Yes."

"Vincent, is Chaos still chewing on her?"

"Yes."

"Well, maybe it's temporary."

"Gaia I hope so," both said at the same time, but the undercurrent was different.

_Or maybe not._

_This is kind of fun._

_And it might be handy._

"So..." Tessa said. "Are we heading to the hotel?"

"I'd like to go to the Manor," Vincent said.

"No, no, no! Vincent!" Tessa protested, actually stomping one of her feet.

"What's the problem?" Sephiroth asked.

"The problem is him, lying twenty-five years in a coffin that we could barely roust him out of! No, Vincent!"

"I'm out of ammunition; I need to reload. I feel _naked._" he said pointedly.

Tessa's face reddened and she shrunk away from him until her back bumped into Zack, who had come up to join him. Zack wrapped an arm around Tessa protectively. Sephiroth looked at her, confused; it would take him awhile to get all the details of this story straightened out.

_What was that about?_ Sephiroth bristled at Vincent through their new found connection.

_Long story._

It occurred to Sephiroth that he might be able to extract whatever he wanted from Valentine. He made a mental assault to do so and felt the equivalent to slamming his virtual head against a brick wall.

_Ow._

_Don't do that,_ Valentine's voice was smirking at him. How a mental voice could smirk, Sephiroth couldn't imagine, but he was sure that it was.

"If you allow me to appease my paranoid nature regarding ammunition," Vincent said, "I will accompany you to the hotel."

Sephiroth turned without a further word and headed for the ground transport, the group docilely following. Vincent had realized something in that last exchange. One, Sephiroth didn't like being beaten or even resisted, and two, he himself was already very familiar with this type of mental communication; he'd been subjected to it for twenty-five years by the demons inside of him. He was already master of mentally blocking, evading, and arguing. Sephiroth had yet to learn how to do all of these things. But learn he would, and quickly. He was smart. What Vincent wasn't consciously aware of was his own emotion that came with that last thought. It was a spark of pride.


	42. Back to Town

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: I know, this is short, but I'm splitting the next chapter so it had to break here. I'll get the next chap up in a little bit  
**

The ride down from the reactor was short but Sephiroth managed to convey most of the necessary information to Marcus, leaving out select pieces of the story that pertained to himself and Vincent. Nobody in the car corrected him. Sephiroth had no idea how he was going to write a report for this one.

Zack, with Tessa and Cloud falling asleep one on each of his shoulders, was surprised to hear that Sephiroth had identified the potential source of the monster epidemic in the mountains near the reactor. Apparently the core was full of stored entities from past experimentations and he thought they might be dropping into the pool, then traveling through the pool's connection to the lifestream and popping up outside of the reactor. Zack hadn't noticed these things, but he had put most of his attention into just trying to stay alive.

"I wish we still had our Turks to work with these damn containers," Sephiroth said, "They're probably all locked."

"We have a Turk," Tessa said sleepily, nodding towards Vincent. "You're file still says you're active, Mr. Ninety-seven."

Vincent frowned, actually looking a little alarmed.

"He can open Hojo's stuff," She continued, "I saw him do two in the Mansion. Although he was a large purple beast during one of them."

Marcus looked up, confused. Some sort of inside joke, no doubt.

_Purple?_ Sephiroth asked.

_I guess it was purple,_ Vincent replied.

_So one purple beast, one red winged demon. What do the other two look like?_

_I have no idea._

They let Vincent out at the manor while Sephiroth continued with Marcus. But his eyes followed the retreating red form, concerned.

"Zack, you got anything left?"

"Enough," the young Soldier gave a tired smile.

"Go with him. Make sure he doesn't... lie down in a coffin or anything. We're going ahead to the hotel. I want to see you, but give me an hour or so." Sephiroth looked at Tessa.

"Okee doke, but I don't know if I can handle him," Zack said, nodding towards the Mansion.

"You always handled me OK."

"Right, and you used to be just as bad. Although you don't turn into a large winged, alien eating monster. And I saw his jump, must be at least thirty feet. You know what Seph, your old man might be the only one on the planet who can actually kick your ass."

Sephiroth rolled his eyes, wondering what he had done to deserve this long night. Day. Whatever the hell it was now.

"Apparently young blondes with- what did you hit me with Cloud?"

"A fire extinguisher," Cloud said, not opening his eyes.

"-with fire extinguishers can kick my ass. Get going, Zack."

Zack trotted into the Manor after Vincent. Marcus, thoroughly confused by the exchange, wondered if he wanted to know everything about this mission.


	43. Reconnections

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

**A/N: ** OK, here is another split chapter. If you like the YAOI story line, hit the link for my profile and read the story Reconnections **instead** of this chapter of the same title. If you choose to do that, you don't need to read this one, everything here is contained in the other. If you're just into the heterosmut you can catch the first half of the replacement chapter and be OK, just bail when Zack shows up.

The arrangements at the hotel were a bit of a chore. The manager was not accustomed to settling rooms at such an early hour, but Sephiroth had insisted on having the lone suite of the place, making sure Vincent had a room available, and keeping the two Turk's rooms secured until they were ready to clear them out. And he wanted a note left for Zack regarding his room number. And extra towels.

The hotel staff had been clearly rattled, as if the presence of Sephiroth wasn't enough, their group looked quite a fright. All three were covered in some sort of metallic white powder, Cloud was dotted with scorches and soot, and between Zack and Reno Sephiroth had picked up quite a few blood smears.

"You first," Sephiroth motioned Tessa towards the shower in their suite. Not fancy by Midgar standards, but charming enough.

"Are you sure? You don't want to go first?" she avoided his eyes again. He would try to fix this in a minute.

"I'm sure."

He waited for the shower to run for a minute or two, enough for the hot water to do its soothing, relaxing work, then peeled off his clothes and stepped in with her. He slipped his hands around her waist and kissed her, letting the water fall on top of them, between them. He could taste it as it seeped between their lips.

Then Tessa laid her face on his chest and he dipped his head into stream, letting the water rinse away the evidence of the long night. He stroked her neck and back, knowing what he wanted to say but now having trouble getting to it. He needed to know that she still loved him, after what he'd done, after she saw him crazed and dangerous. He wondered if she would ever look at him the same after that, and didn't know how to reassure her of his trustworthiness.

"Sephiroth, do you still love me?"

He pulled away and looked down at her, the surprise plain on his face.

"I want to know... if things have changed," she said, her voice quivering slightly.

Sephiroth smiled slowly.

"Everything is changed," he said. "We're having a baby."

She smiled back at this.

"I'm going to be a father; Zack is going to be some kind of uncle." The image made them both laugh a little.

"I'm probably free of that troubling nightmare, I have a father who is alive and walking around and very weird. I have a wife who can do whatever is needed to protect me and my children, even if she has to do things to me. I've never been so full of optimism in my life. And none of these things changes how I feel about you. I love you Tessa. I need you. But I'm... worried that I may frighten you now."

"You've never frightened me," she laid her body along his, their skin hot and wet and slick. "I don't know why, but I've never felt anything but safe and protected around you. As long as you're actually yourself, that is."

"Not worried I might again turn into a homicidal maniac?"

"Not particularly. But even if you do, you know what? You're worth it."

She reached her mouth up and kissed him, and rolled their positions so he stood full under the stream of water. "Let me do this for you," she said.

Sephiroth closed his eyes; he loved this particular brand of attention that she was fond of lavishing on him. He let her shampoo his hair, run soap all over his chest and back, jumping and smiling a bit as wet fingers tickled his armpits. She continued down his buttocks and over muscular thighs, finally rotating in lazy circles around the partially lengthened flesh between his legs.

"I thought you'd be tired," she said, kneeling in the shower basin and letting the back of her tongue drag down top of his organ and then catch a bit of shower water that flowed off the tip.

"Not too tired," he said. But in truth he was pretty tired. This would have to go quick. He turned off the faucet, quickly squeezed that gallon out water out of his hair, and with a handful of extra towels brought her to the bed.

cccccccccc

A soft knock jolted him awake. Zack. He unwrapped himself from Tessa, covered her with the blankets and looked around for his pants. He definately wanted pants if he was going to answer the door. He stepped out in the hallway, closing the door behind him but not before Zack caught the drift of the scene inside.

"I'm interrupting," Zack said. He hadn't showered and still had the ghostlike appearance from the metal dust.

"No, I asked you to come. Because you're important to me. I wanted to ask you if you were OK after everything that happened here. If you and I are OK."

Zack stared off to the side at the wall. He should probably just let it drop. But still...

"Do you remember," he started, then stopped. Did he really want the answer to this? "Do you remember the fight in the reactor, after you were... after you struck Jenova?"

"Yes."

Zack dropped his eyes. "You said some things to me..."

"Zachary –." Sephiroth dipped his head down until he caught Zack's eyes and brought them back up to look at him.

"I know you don't speak carelessly," Zack said, "You always say you mean everything you say."

"In a way," Sephiroth said, "In that I always speak deliberately. I meant to say what I did, those remarks were calculated, just like the rest of my attacks. That's not the same as speaking the truth. What's the rule about enemies who taunt or insult you?"

"That they're afraid of y-." Zack stopped short. Surely that hadn't been the case.

"You almost had me. Twice. Once you almost overbalanced me on a pipe that hand no good landing below it, and once the Buster missed my head only out of sheer luck. You're damn good, much better than your training hall matches suggest."

"Well, I'm not fighting for my life in the training hall. Usually. And I had help."

"I was counting Cloud as a legitimate part of your arsenal. If you recall he chose to fight on your side, not mine."

"I wasn't possessed by an evil alien at the time."

"True. But you are far better with the troops than I am. I did not make you Second so that you could be second. I chose the man who could be first. When something happens to me."

Zack's eyes flashed in alarm.

"Nothing's going to happen to you, Seph."

"Right. Unless I get taken over by an alien or clonked on the head by pretty blond boys or injected by sneaky women. You led on this one, Zack, front to end, even though I was there. Sort of there, at least."

"Well, fine," Zack finally capitulated, then grinned. "But you know what? I like being your Second."

"Get some sleep, Zack," Sephiroth said, then leaned in and kissed Zack on the side of his dusty head.


	44. The End

**Summary: **Sometimes acting on that homicidal impulse is the right thing to do. Pre-crazy Sephiroth.

**Disclaimer:** I waive whatever rights I'm supposed to be waiving here.

Sephiroth, Zack, and Tessa sat at the same outdoor cafe where their team had eaten lunch only three days earlier, in the plaza under the clock tower. It was the first full day of cleanup and things were going so well that Sephiroth suggested the three of them should come back into town for a lunch break. Cloud had been allowed some personal time and was presumably using it for such. Vincent had declined to join them as he appeared to be obsessed with eliminating the remainders of Hojo's legacy. The man seemed to have unusually low requirements for sleep and food and became obviously sullen if not kept busy, so Sephiroth had put him in charge specimen cleanup team inside the core while he handled disposal, which required coordination with ShinRa and reactor personnel.

"So that's it?" Sephiroth said, looking up at the tower, "the clock tower that made you think that Nibelheim was the dream town?"

"Well it went off just as Cloud was saying something about his family, and Tessa had just come back from the reactor and hearing voices in her head," Zack said.

Sephiroth nodded. He was still trying to put all the pieces together of this intricate puzzle.

"I still don't see how I did anything to sidestep my fate. It was Valentine in the end who saved me."

"Well he wouldn't have gotten up out of that coffin had we not pestered him on your behalf," Zack said.

"Actually, I asked him about that," Tessa said, "And it was the baby that finally got him up. The idea that I might go out and get hurt while carrying it."

"So you're saying I was saved by having sex?"

"Well, maybe love," Tessa ran her toes down his shin under the table.

He looked from her to Zack. "I'd have never gotten this far without you. With my life, I mean."

Zack snorted. "You'd have never gotten there even with all my work if you hadn't killed Hojo that day. You're social progress was painfully slow before that."

"If I hadn't killed Hojo Tessa would not have come to ShinRa when she did."

"I don't suppose you had one of those precog dreams before slicing the bastard?" Zack asked.

Sephiroth remembered that day clearly. He had been walking around with that particular ill feeling that always followed having to watch himself eviscerate Zack in his dreams when Hojo had handed him a list of Soldiers he wanted for new tests. A list with Zack's name on it.

"I did, the very night before," he said, and the three looked at one another, a spark of understanding lighting in their eyes.

"That's it then," Tessa said, "the thing you did that precipitated everything that led you to this point. A single act, that one stroke that removed Hojo from your life and allowed everything you needed to flourish."

Sephiroth leaned back in his chair, smiling to himself. _And a good stroke it had been_.

**Epilogue**

"Called you in, did he?" Rufus ShinRa was seated outside the president's office, in a sort of waiting area near the secretary's station. He was leaning forward in his chair, but his shoulders remained slumped in a defeated posture. The president's secretary was clearly nervous, trying her best to look busy at her desk and ignore her recently demoted boss's presence in the lobby.

Sephiroth looked down at the man without replying. This had been an unwelcome turn of events. ShinRa the elder had returned from the cult or whatever it was he had joined outside of Mideel to a state of ShinRa he found wholly unacceptable. Sephiroth had thought he'd never come back, that maybe he'd crawled away to die or something. But this seemed not to be the case, the old man had returned with more energy and more of an asshole than when he left.

"He's pretty hot about that Hojo business. I don't suppose you'd considering slicing him in two as well, would you? I wouldn't even place you under house arrest this time." Rufus smiled weakly, and actually looked disappointed to see the General did not have his big sword with him. In fact he hadn't seen it on him at all lately.

Sephiroth again stared without answering. It might not be a bad idea, on the whole, to kill the old bastard. One of the things old ShinRa was objecting to was his son's many projects to develop alternative energy supplies. Sephiroth and Tseng had discussed these developments during the past year and agreed that regardless of Rufus's motivation this direction was ultimately more sustainable for the company and might circumvent the need for them to take over. But the elder ShinRa, who was still the company's sole and private owner, could only see how such methods reduced the profit margin.

"He'll see you now, General."

Sephiroth walked into the big office, remembering to adopt a subservient bearing that always got him the best results with Mr. ShinRa. He dipped his head in a respectful bow; ShinRa always liked that too. But today he was not to be placated. The old man angrily smoked a foul smelling pipe, chewing aggressively on the mouthpiece. His balding pate was red with agitation and his pale blue eyes glared fearlessly at the General.

"I see you've been running amok in my absence," he said, his voice terse and forceful.

Sephiroth kept his face neutral.

"When I leave my son in charge I expect you to follow him as you would me."

Sephiroth bowed again, this time remembering not to bring his eyes all the way up to meet ShinRa's. "I am sorry, if I have misinterpreted some things."

"Misinterpreted?" ShinRa bellowed, "You killed our most valuable bio researcher!"

Sephiroth lowered his head a tad more, partly to cover a small smirk, but also to feign chagrin.

"Now luckily for you the main reason I kept Hojo was in hopes of getting more project soldiers at your level, and his efforts on this front had not been successful. I may be willing to forgive you, as you've perhaps managed to provide us with what we need by the more usual method. Your new wife if pregnant, is she not?"

Sephiroth looked up, barely able to swap "alarm" for "hopeful" on his face. He nodded, not trusting to his voice.

ShinRa smiled the barest of smiles. Just as he thought, the guy was looking for an avenue to be back in good graces. He figured the General was not without ambition.

"Hojo always said you were infertile. Is it because of her elevated mako level that this was possible?"

Sephiroth nodded again, unprepared for this avenue and unsure which way to twist it.

"Well that's fine, then," ShinRa said, smiling a bit. "She should be strong enough to produce rapidly for you, and we'll give the offspring growth accelerant to get them online quicker."

Sephiroth started to weigh the benefits of snapping his neck, strangulation, or throwing him through the window. The window would be the most satisfying, but –

_Calm yourself. If you kill without a plan you can never control the result. _A deep soothing voice inside his head interrupted his thoughts.

_How long have you been listening? _ he shot back at his father.

_Long enough. You called. Just say whatever he wants to hear. He's a dead man anyway._

Sephiroth hadn't noticed reaching out to Valentine, but it had happened a couple times before, when he was stressed with something. He had recovered his face from 'murderous intent' to 'interested' and as luck would have it ShinRa had been tapping the ash out of his pipe and not noticed Sephiroth momentarily falling out of character.

"And we can get a whole set of females put through the mako enhancement process for you, I'm sure there will be plenty of volunteers. How does that sound to you, the most powerful army on the planet populated by your own sons, maybe even daughters?"

Sephiroth hoped the flicker of anger in his eyes might be mistaken for greed. He enhanced the illusion by adding a thin smile to his face.

"Thank-you, sir," he said, and bowed again, barely able to contain his fury and the desire to kill the man right now.

"Dismissed, General," ShinRa said, feeling generous.

Once Sephiroth had left ShinRa sat down, only now letting his relief show. In truth th General always made him more than a bit nervous, even as a child, but he'd always kept that from showing and as a result the meeting had gone just as he predicted. The problem with Rufus was he was too soft; a powerful weapon like Sephiroth needed a firm hand. But Sephiroth was a soldier in the end, and all soldiers liked, needed really, to be commanded. If you led properly they followed, and Sephiroth had responded in exactly that way, just as he always had. ShinRa smiled to himself. He was going to enjoy having more of those.

cccccccccccccccccccc

Sephiroth stomped down the stairwell, too agitated to sit in an elevator. Turks moved out of his way as he strode through the Turk floor, small bits of electricity occasionally snapping from his fingers. He told himself there really should be no problem; everything was in place and ready to launch any number of plans, ranging from complete takeover to fine tuned nudges. And he trusted Tseng, didn't he? He thought he did, but now that it came to it he needed to see that commitment in the man's eyes.

He'd calmed down considerably by the time he reached Tseng's office. Derek the secretary looked up as he approached.

"He's expecting you, please go right in," he said.

Sephiroth wondered about that, but dismissed it for the moment. Tseng probably had the Presidential office bugged.

He walked in to see Tseng looking pleased with himself, and Vincent in the room with him. While they still investigated the events at Nibelheim Tseng had passed him off as 'special consultant' and was finding him indispensable in more ways than one.

"Vincent said you'd be coming down," Tseng said. Tseng understood the two had some communication method he hadn't been able to figure out, but he hadn't pressed them on it. They would probably tell him eventually. Sephiroth had accepted Tseng into his small circle, and Vincent and Tseng had hit it off immediately, the Turk commander referring to him as a "Turk's Turk", sharp, no-nonsense, and businesslike. Although he had gotten a bit eccentric during his absence. They managed to get him not to wear the red cloak while in the building, but he insisted on the full leather outfit and big ass guns. Sephiroth on his part found heavily armed and wearing black leather to be perfectly reasonable.

"We have something for you," Tseng said, reaching behind his desk.

_What is it? _Sephiroth asked, in no mood for games.

_Wait. Let him do it,_ Vincent replied, and although the gunman's face was impassive as ever Sephiroth could feel the underlying anticipation.

The thing that Tseng brought out was long, ridiculously long, thin, and wrapped in cloth. Sephiroth stared, all cares momentarily forgotten as he watched Tseng unwrap the bright blade. His heart gave one extra large thump. It was Masamune; he couldn't mistake that sword anywhere. He took it gingerly from Tseng.

"How?" he looked from Tseng to Vincent, Tseng was genuinely smiling, and even Vincent wore half a smirk.

"We had to drag the bottom of the reactor pool for some... items that Reno and Rude dropped when they fell."

Sephiroth tilted the blade to and fro, noticing a slight green sheen on the surface.

"We noticed the color as well. I had the metallurgy department check its structure, it still looks good, amazing actually, but..."

"I'll have to whack some stuff with it to be sure." Sephiroth gripped the handle and reached out with that peculiar connection he always had with this weapon from the moment he captured it from her previous master in Wutai. It felt good, but something was different. He wondered about the effect of infusing a blade with mako. Maybe it would run through a monster without damaging it. Or a human. Of course he was a mako infused creature that had no trouble killing these things. But even if it had become a wall decoration he was grateful to have it back.

"Thank-you."

"You're welcome, General. Did you need something of me?"

Sephiroth was suddenly reminded of why he came to see Tseng in the first place. He couldn't speak freely; even the Turk commander's office had listening devices tied to the company's mainframe. Everything was recorded. Not much of it was reviewed, but you couldn't be sure. Sephiroth cast his mind back to the day when he had asked Tseng how he would know when the moment had come for them to act.

"I have... been asked to do something which I cannot."

Tseng smiled, actually smiled. "It's time," he said.

**A/N: That's it, it really is done. I want to thank everyone who went along on this little ride, especially everyone who helped me out. Sorry to disappoint a few of you, but I don't have any plans for sequels or expansions on this one. I've been writing on One Stroke almost every day for three months, and I need a serious break. At least from these characters. Cheers.**


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